These include anything termed “dialects”

Include rural and urban varieties

To the extent they deviate from the standard◦ The more disparaged they are

◦ Often tend to coincide with or reinforce class and racial stereotypes

Not at all◦ Equal to all other natural languages

◦ All habitual ways of speaking have predictable rules and structure

African-American English Vernacular

One of the most studied and debated varieties of English in the US

Uses certain distinct sounds and pronunciations

Stigma most often focuses on grammatical characteristics

◦ Double negation (ain’t … no …)

Like “ne.. pas” in French

◦ Verb aspects (been, steady, been done…)

Complex and subtle distinctions about time and duration of actions

Possible African influence?

◦ Deletion of copula (he dumb)

Omission of some form of “to be”

Simplification has long history in English

◦ Archaic pronunciations (aks)

Reflect patterns from older English variants

E.g. “Aks” versus “ask”

Two stable variants in Old English – “ascian” and “acsian”

16th c. was when “ask” became “standard”

“Aks” commonly seen 16th and pre-16thc. literature◦ Christ's sermon on the Mount in Miles Coverdale's

Bible, 1535: "Axe and it shal begiuen you.“

◦ William Caxton: “A mercer cam in to an

hows and axed for mete…”

It wouldn’t be controversial

Language variants aren’t random:

Spoken by many, but not all African Americans◦ And some other ethnic community members..

Internally diverse

Fluid and changing

Controversy over origins

Standard English is “power language”◦ Grammatical rather than pronunciation standard

◦ Debates over what/why of the “power language” eclipsed by pragmatic needs of students

◦ Controversy inside and outside the community over policy

How to acquire?◦ Pedagogical debates

◦ Larger social environment

◦ Code-switching

As an English variant, AAEV better known than others

Many innovations in AAEV

Youth culture

In most situations:◦ Competent code-switching is preferred

◦ This applies to a number of dialectical variants

Good case studies of how language does not function separately from social life