The relationship of white Southern speech to Vernacular Black English | Language | Cambridge Core (original) (raw)
Abstract
Data from rural Southern white speech are compared with Vernacular Black English (VBE) in order to determine the relationship of these varieties. Copula absence and invariant be, the two features most often cited in arguments about black–white speech relations, are described from a viewpoint which admits structured variability as part of linguistic competence. Some lects of Southern white speech and VBE may use zero copula quite similarly, but there is considerable difference in the uses of invariant be; the ‘distributive’ function of be appears to be unique to VBE in this setting. There is evidence that certain aspects of copula absence in white Southern speech may have been taken from a decreolizing form of Black English.
Information
Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 1974 by Linguistic Society of America
Access options
Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)
Article purchase
Temporarily unavailable
References
Anshen, Frank. 1969. Speech variation among Negroes in a small southern community. New York University dissertation.Google Scholar
Bailey, Beryl Loftman. 1965. Toward a new perspective in Negro English dialectology. American Speech 40. 171–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bailey, Charles-James N. 1969. A possible explanation for an assimilation curiosity. Working papers in linguistics, University of Hawaii, 1:5.187–9.Google Scholar
Bailey, Charles-James N. 1973a. Variation resulting from different rule orderings in English phonology. New ways of analyzing variation in English, ed. by Bailey, Charles-James N. & Shuy, Roger W., 211–52. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Bailey, Charles-James N. 1973b. Variation and linguistic theory. Arlington: Center for Applied Linguistics.Google Scholar
Bickerton, Derek. 1972. On the structure of polylectal grammars. Monograph series on languages and linguistics, Georgetown University, 25. 17–42.Google Scholar
Cash, W. J. 1941. The mind of the south. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Cedergren, Henrietta J., and Sankoff, David. 1974. Variable rules: performance as a statistical reflection of competence. Lg. 50. 333–55.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Carol. 1969. The acquisition of syntax in children from 5 to 10. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Cunningham, Irma A. E. 1970. A syntactic analysis of Sea Island Creole (‘Gullah‘). University of Michigan dissertation.Google Scholar
Davis, Lawrence M. 1969. Dialect research: mythology and reality. Orbis 18. 332–37.Google Scholar
Dillard, J. L. 1968. Non-standard Negro dialects—convergence or divergence? Florida FL Reporter 6:2.9–12.Google Scholar
Dillard, J. L. 1972. Black English: its history and usage in the United States. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Ehrman, Madeline. 1966. The meaning of the modals of present-day American English, The Hague: Mouton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fasold, Ralph W. 1969. Tense and the form be in Black English. Lg. 45. 763–76.Google Scholar
Fasold, Ralph W. 1970. Two models of socially significant linguistic variation. Lg. 46. 551–63.Google Scholar
Fasold, Ralph W. 1972a. Tense marking in Black English: a linguistic and social analysis. Washington, D.C.: Center for Applied Linguistics.Google Scholar
Fasold, Ralph W. 1972b. A look at the form be in standard English. Languages and linguistics working papers, 5, Sociolinguistics, ed. by Riley, William K. & Smith, David M., 95–101. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Fasold, Ralph W. 1972c. Decreolization and autonomous language change. Florida FL Reporter 10. 9–12, 51.Google Scholar
Fasold, Ralph W., and Wolfram, Walt. 1970. Some linguistic features of Negro dialect. Teaching standard English in the inner city, ed. by Fasold, Ralph W. & Shuy, Roger W., 41–86. Washington, D.C.: Center for Applied Linguistics.Google Scholar
Ferguson, Charles A. 1971. Absence of copula and the notion of simplicity: a study of normal speech, baby talk, foreigner talk, and pidgins. Pidginization and creolization of languages, ed. by Hymes, Dell, 141–50. Cambridge: University Press.Google Scholar
Fraser, Bruce. 1972. Optional rules in grammar. Monograph series on languages and linguistics, Georgetown University, 25. 1–16.Google Scholar
Griffin, Peg, Guy, Gregory; and Sag, Ivan. 1973. Variable analysis of variable data. University of Michigan Papers in Linguistics, 1:2.Google Scholar
Henry, P. L. 1958. A linguistic survey of Ireland: preliminary report. Lochlann 1. 49–208.Google Scholar
Kurath, Hans. 1949. A word geography of the eastern United States. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Labov, William. 1969. Contraction, deletion, and inherent variability of the English copula. Lg. 45. 715–62.Google Scholar
Labov, William; Cohen, Paul, Robins, Clarence; and Lewis, John. 1968. A study of the nonstandard English of Negro and Puerto Rican speakers in New York City. USOE final report, research project no. 3288.Google Scholar
Legum, Stanley E., Pfaff, Carol, Tinnie, Gene; and Nicholas, Michael. 1971. The speech of young black children in Los Angeles. (Technical report, 33.) Inglewood, Ca.: Southwest Regional Laboratory.Google Scholar
McDavid, Raven I. 1973. Go slow in ethnic attributions: geographic mobility and dialect prejudices. Varieties of present-day English, ed. by Bailey, Richard W. & Robinson, Jay L., 258–73. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
McDavid, Raven I., and McDavid, Virginia Glenn. 1951. The relationship of the speech of American Negroes to the speech of whites. American Speech 26. 3–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, Joy L. 1972. Be. Finite and absence: features of speech—black and white? Orbis 21. 22–7.Google Scholar
Mitchell-Kernan, Claudia. 1971. Language behavior in a black urban community. (Language-Behavior Research Laboratory, Monographs, 2.) Berkeley: University of California.Google Scholar
Sledd, James H. 1966. Breaking, umlaut, and the southern drawl. Lg. 42. 18–41.Google Scholar
Stewart, William A. 1967. Sociolinguistic factors in the history of American Negro dialects. Florida FL Reporter 5:2.11, 22, 24, 26.Google Scholar
Stewart, William A. 1968. Continuity and change in American Negro dialects. Florida FL Reporter 6:1.3–4, 14–16, 18.Google Scholar
Stewart, William A. 1969. Historical and structural bases for the recognition of Negro dialect. Monograph series on languages and linguistics, Georgetown University, 22. 215–24.Google Scholar
Stewart, William A. 1972. Review of black–white speech relationships. Florida FL Reporter 10. 25–6, 55–6.Google Scholar
Summerlin, Nanjo Corbitt. 1972. A dialect study: affective parameters in the deletion and substitution of consonants in the deep South. Florida State University dissertation.Google Scholar
Traugott, Elizabeth C. 1972. Principles in the history of American English—a reply. Florida FL Reporter 10. 5–6, 56.Google Scholar
Williamson, Juanita V. 1971. A look at Black English. Crisis 78. 169–73, 185.Google Scholar
Wolfram, Walt. 1969. A sociolinguistic description of Detroit Negro speech. Washington, D.C.: Center for Applied Linguistics.Google Scholar
Wolfram, Walt. 1971. Black-white speech relationships revisited. Black-white speech relationships, ed. by Wolfram, Walt & Clarke, Nona H., 139–61. Washington, D.C.: Center for Applied Linguistics.Google Scholar
Wolfram, Walt. 1973. Sociolinguistic aspects of assimilation: Puerto Rican English in New York City. Arlington, Va.: Center for Applied Linguistics.Google Scholar
Wolfram, Walt; in collaboration with Shiels, Marie and Fasold, Ralph W. 1971. Overlapping influence in the English of second generation Puerto Rican teenagers in East Harlem. Final report, USOE project no. 3–70–0033(508).Google Scholar