- The Oxford Handbook of African American Language
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- Acknowledgments
- About the Editor
- List of Contributors
- Language Use in African American Communities: An Introduction
- The English Origins Hypothesis
- The Creole Origins Hypothesis
- The Emergence of African American English: Monogenetic or Polygenetic? With or Without “Decreolization”? Under How Much Substrate Influence?
- The Origins of African American Vernacular English: Beginnings
- African American English over Yonder: The Language of the Liberian Settler Community
- Documenting the History of African American Vernacular English: A Survey and Assessment of Sources and Results
- Regionality in the Development of African American English
- The Place of Gullah in the African American Linguistic Continuum
- Rural Texas African American Vernacular English
- African American English in the Mississippi Delta: A Case Study of Copula Absence and r-Lessness in the Speech of African American Women in Coahoma County
- African American Voices in Atlanta
- African American Language in Pittsburgh and the Lower Susquehanna Valley
- African American Phonology in a Philadelphia Community
- African American Language in New York City
- African American Vernacular English in California: Over Four Decades of Vibrant Variationist Research
- The Black ASL (American Sign Language) Project: An Overview
- The Sociolinguistic Construction of African American Language
- Syntax and Semantics in African American English
- The Systematic Marking of Tense, Modality, and Aspect in African American Language
- On the Syntax-Prosody Interface in African American English
- Segmental Phonology of African American English
- Prosodic Features of African American English
- Language Acquisition in the African American Child: Prior to Age Four
- The Development of African American English through Childhood and Adolescence
- Development of Variation in Child African American English
- Narrative Structures of African American Children: Commonalities and Differences
- Some Similarities and Differences Between African American English and Southern White English in Children
- Assessing the Language Skills of African American English Child Speakers: Current Approaches and Perspectives
- African American Language and Education: History and Controversy in the Twentieth Century
- Managing Two Varieties: Code-Switching in the Educational Context
- Balancing Pedagogy with Theory: The Infusion of African American Language Research into Everyday Pre-K‒12 Teaching Practices
- History of Research on Multiliteracies and Hip Hop Pedagogy: A Critical Review
- African American Vernacular English and Reading
- Dialect Switching and Mathematical Reasoning Tests: Implications for Early Educational Achievement
- Beyond Bidialectalism: Language Planning and Policies for African American Students
- African American Church Language
- The (Re)turn to Remus Orthography: The Voices of African American Language in American Literature
- African American Language and Black Poetry
- African American Divas of Comedy: Staking a Claim in Public Space
- The Construction of Ethnicity via voicing: African American English in Children’s Animated Film
- SWB (Speaking while Black): Linguistic Profiling and Discrimination Based on Speech as a Surrogate for Race against Speakers of African American Vernacular English
- Racializing Language: Unpacking Linguistic Approaches to Attitudes about Race and Speech
- African American Standard English
- African American English in the Middle Class
- African American Women’s Language: Mother Tongues Untied
- Black Masculine Language
- Hip Hop Nation Language: Localization and Globalization
- African American Language and Identity: Contradictions and Conundrums
- Author Index
- Subject Index
Abstract and Keywords
The ever-increasing numbers of second generation West Indian Americans affects the ethnic landscape and raises the question of what is African American Language in New York City today? In this chapter, we examine the English spoken by children of Black West Indian immigrants to New York City and their African American counterparts. The results of this research point to a similar linguistic repertoire for both groups of Black New Yorkers, with subtleties evident at the quantitative level. While both groups are quite /r/-ful, Caribbean American-identified Blacks have higher rates of /r/-fulness than African American-identified Blacks. Moreover, while both groups show the tensing and raising of /ɔ/ typically associated with New York City, there are differences in the length of the off-glide. Finally, while the realization of /oʊ/ is closer to a New York realization than the Caribbean Creole English varieties, off-glide differences exist between the two groups.
Keywords: African American Language, New York City, African Americans, West Indians, Caribbean Creole English, linguistic repertoire
Renée A. Blake is Associate Professor in the Departments of Linguistics and Social & Cultural Analysis at New York University. Her research examines language contact, race, ethnicity and class with a focus on African American English, Caribbean Creole English and New York City English. Her work has been published in journals including Language in Society, Language and Education, Journal of English Linguistics, Language, Variation and Change and English Today. She has served as a consultant to many programs and organizations including Disney and the Ford Foundation. She developed two web-based linguistic sites: ‘Word. The Online Journal on African American English’ (www.africanamericanenglish.com) and ‘Voices of New York’ (www.nyu.edu/classes/blake.map2001).
Cara Shousterman is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Linguistics at New York University. She began her linguistic studies with a B.A. from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. Her work on African American English and West Indian American English has appeared in English Today and the Journal of English Linguistics. Her research interests are centered around variation and change in American English, and the ways in which language interacts with ethnicity. Her dissertation “Speaking English in Spanish Harlem: Language Change in Puerto Rican English” is a sociolinguistic study of New York-born Puerto Ricans affiliated with a neighborhood community center in East Harlem, New York, which explores how community change is reflected in language. She is a regular contributor to ‘Word. The Online Journal on African American English’ (www.africanamericanenglish.com).
Luiza Newlin-Lukowicz is a Ph.D. candidate in the Linguistics Department at New York University. She holds an M.A. in English Linguistics from Eastern Michigan University and an M.A. in English Philology from Adam Mickiewicz University. Her research employs socio-phonetic methodologies to investigate how social and cognitive factors determine the outcomes of language contact and the diffusion of regional variation. She has studied how minority groups, such as African Americans, Caribbean Americans, and Polish Americans, utilize linguistic variation to project complex ethno-racial identities. Building on this work, her current research integrates acoustic methods, formal approaches to linguistics, and social theory to investigate how White ethnics use language to construct their identities in multicultural contexts.
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- The Oxford Handbook of African American Language
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- Acknowledgments
- About the Editor
- List of Contributors
- Language Use in African American Communities: An Introduction
- The English Origins Hypothesis
- The Creole Origins Hypothesis
- The Emergence of African American English: Monogenetic or Polygenetic? With or Without “Decreolization”? Under How Much Substrate Influence?
- The Origins of African American Vernacular English: Beginnings
- African American English over Yonder: The Language of the Liberian Settler Community
- Documenting the History of African American Vernacular English: A Survey and Assessment of Sources and Results
- Regionality in the Development of African American English
- The Place of Gullah in the African American Linguistic Continuum
- Rural Texas African American Vernacular English
- African American English in the Mississippi Delta: A Case Study of Copula Absence and r-Lessness in the Speech of African American Women in Coahoma County
- African American Voices in Atlanta
- African American Language in Pittsburgh and the Lower Susquehanna Valley
- African American Phonology in a Philadelphia Community
- African American Language in New York City
- African American Vernacular English in California: Over Four Decades of Vibrant Variationist Research
- The Black ASL (American Sign Language) Project: An Overview
- The Sociolinguistic Construction of African American Language
- Syntax and Semantics in African American English
- The Systematic Marking of Tense, Modality, and Aspect in African American Language
- On the Syntax-Prosody Interface in African American English
- Segmental Phonology of African American English
- Prosodic Features of African American English
- Language Acquisition in the African American Child: Prior to Age Four
- The Development of African American English through Childhood and Adolescence
- Development of Variation in Child African American English
- Narrative Structures of African American Children: Commonalities and Differences
- Some Similarities and Differences Between African American English and Southern White English in Children
- Assessing the Language Skills of African American English Child Speakers: Current Approaches and Perspectives
- African American Language and Education: History and Controversy in the Twentieth Century
- Managing Two Varieties: Code-Switching in the Educational Context
- Balancing Pedagogy with Theory: The Infusion of African American Language Research into Everyday Pre-K‒12 Teaching Practices
- History of Research on Multiliteracies and Hip Hop Pedagogy: A Critical Review
- African American Vernacular English and Reading
- Dialect Switching and Mathematical Reasoning Tests: Implications for Early Educational Achievement
- Beyond Bidialectalism: Language Planning and Policies for African American Students
- African American Church Language
- The (Re)turn to Remus Orthography: The Voices of African American Language in American Literature
- African American Language and Black Poetry
- African American Divas of Comedy: Staking a Claim in Public Space
- The Construction of Ethnicity via voicing: African American English in Children’s Animated Film
- SWB (Speaking while Black): Linguistic Profiling and Discrimination Based on Speech as a Surrogate for Race against Speakers of African American Vernacular English
- Racializing Language: Unpacking Linguistic Approaches to Attitudes about Race and Speech
- African American Standard English
- African American English in the Middle Class
- African American Women’s Language: Mother Tongues Untied
- Black Masculine Language
- Hip Hop Nation Language: Localization and Globalization
- African American Language and Identity: Contradictions and Conundrums
- Author Index
- Subject Index
