African American English презентация

African American English Social aspects

Distinctive features of African American English are not an imitation of lower level, they reflect the distinctive path of development of African-American language community, which is reflected in a language system that allows to reveal the basic cultural and cognitive attitudes that determine African-American linguistic consciousness. It is quite natural that the speech of the white population will differ from the speech of African-Americans, since the features of discourse are determined by the social environment - place of residence, the presence of linguistic personalities, communication situations in which the individual manifests themselves.

African Americans have managed to maintain their ethnic identity. This is due to the development conditions of Black English, one of which is the isolation of African-Americans in inner cities, the ghetto. The black people remained isolated in the poor ghettos and as a result retained their dialect. Physical isolation contributed to linguistic isolation and the preservation of African American spoken (vernacular) language. The are a number of factors which affect American linguistic community and on African Americans in particular: the growing gap between rich and poor, a growing percentage of the population in prisons, disorganization of family life, deterioration in the quality of education.

In 1970s U. Labov proved that African American English is an independent linguistic system with certain rules, grammar, and phonetics. and vocabulary. Consequently, the language of African-Americans does not give reason to talk about any impaired cognitive development of its speakers. A, Spears: «African-American English is not a collection of slang terms, it is not used only by teenagers who spend much time in the streets, it is not a corruption of anything – it has its own history and did not spring historically from any one kind of English. It is a product of the historical blending of mostly English features but also some features of West African languages»

On the one hand, in the minds of white Americans, African Americans are associated with sensuality, artistry and spirituality, on the other - with crime, poverty and deviant behavior. Nowadays discrimination has new specific forms, often veiled and difficult to distinguish which include excessive politeness or the specific use of euphemisms.

Some kinds of racism Another form of modern racism is ambivalent racism, which is characterized by the presence of both positive and negative attitudes towards any racial minority. Ambivalent racists experience an emotional conflict between positive and negative feelings towards a stigmatized racial group One of the forms of latent racism is aversive. It is peculiar to those who, stating about the lack of any racial prejudice and expressing sympathy for blacks as victims of injustice and discrimination, at the same time feels uncomfortable in the company of African-Americans because of a personal unconscious hostility and often even feels fear or disgust, although he/she tries to hide it.

Another manifestation of the duality of consciousness of the white population is noticeable in the phenomenon "White guilt". modern America has moved from the era of "white supremacy" to the era of "white guilt", meaning by it the individual or collective guilt that some white people experience for the harm caused by the racist attitude of the white population towards ethnic minorities both in the past and in the present. As many people in modern America deny the very existence of racism, attempts to solve this problem have a form of cultivation of white guilt, not a real struggle with institutional and the historical consequences of racism.

This of this ideology is building a society future where people will not differentiate races and become indifferent to any characteristic features and factors of racial or ethnic affiliation in communication with each other. But denial of racial and cultural differences does not affect the actual state of affairs and social differentiation. It is not possible to quickly solve the problems of racial prejudice and inequality by turning this topic in taboo So, the ideology of racial "color blindness" can be interpreted as latent racism and differs from open forms of racism in that it does not support negative attitudes and does not propagate hatred towards certain racial groups, but, spreading erroneous ideas about the concept of “race”, trying to “cancel” it, it distorts the real history of interracial relations in the USA.

Cultural appropriation Cultural appropriation is the unacknowledged or inappropriate adoption of the customs, practices, ideas, etc. of one people or society by members of another and typically more dominant people or society. That’s why African Americans oppressed by white people for centuries now oppose unauthorized use of elements its national folklore, language, religious symbolism, clothing, hairstyle and hats, music, dance, etc. American pop stars, designers and artists, accused of cultural appropriation, forced to apologize and make excuses to representatives of those cultures whose attributes and symbols they used.

Linguistic appropriation In linguistic appropriation, speakers of the target language (the group doing the borrowing) adopt resources from the donor language, and then try to deny these to members of the donor language community. But they also achieve it indirectly, by reshaping the meaning of the borrowed material into forms that advance their own interest, making it useless or irrelevant, or even antithetical, to the interests of the donor community. This reshaped meaning may then be imposed on donor speakers. This effect is clearly visible in the following examples of “borrowings,” in which the original of unity was lost, but there was an increase in negative stereotypes regarding blacks.

Bae (short form from "babe" - "dear", "cute"). While the word entered the American vocabulary only in the last few years, most US blacks have been using it for decades. In African American discourse, this form is used to express affection to someone (“What’s up, bae?”, “That’s my bae”). This word has spread since 2013 via Twitter and Instagram for African Americans, hashtags #baecaughtmesleepin and #cookingforbae. Among other Americans, the form of bae has become widely known after the release of the song of the African American singer Farrell Williams “Come Get It Bae ». Its meaning in standard American English was quickly distorted to the point of meaninglessness: the form of bae began to be applied even to inanimate objects (for example, food).

2. Ratchet - a slang word in hip-hop, which in its original sense refers to a rude, "uncouth" woman. It has both positive and negative connotations. Before popularization in American slang, the word was used by blacks mainly in the meaning of “getting excited, partying, going hard”. However, after the release of a number songs that became popular, the word ratchet got a broader meaning and gained in American English, a derogatory sexist connotation (about rude women, especially African-American women). It reinforces the spread of the stereotype of an African-American woman as clumsy, uneducated, overly noisy in public, vulgarly sexual.

3. Uppity ("arrogant”) According to the etymological dictionary, the word appeared in 1880 and was used by African-Americans to address other blacks who seemed impudent. Then in the speech of the white Americans it found a racist connotation, as it implied a black man who “does not know his place”.

Thug ("thug, gangster, gangster"). Representatives of the African American community equate the word with a racist insult. In an African-American speech, thug is partly a bully, partly a hero demonstrating disagreement with the current state of affairs and showing a kind of stability in the face of racism. However, having gained distribution in all-American English, thug began to apply in relation to black criminals, immigrants from dysfunctional areas, for example, to marauders and street robbers. In modern discourse the word is considered to be politically correct substitute for the «nigger».

Linguistic discrimination The opposite phenomenon to linguistic appropriation can be called linguistic discrimination (linguicism). Language discrimination refers to an unfair treatment of an individual solely on the basis of the language he has used, namely discrimination against someone on the basis of how he speaks or writes. For example, depending on the emphasis, the specifics of lexical and grammatical and syntactic means in the speaker’s speech, judgments can be formed about his financial situation, education, social status and character. Black English is often perceived by American society as a sign of limited intelligence or poor education.

Diglossia not recognized officially admissible in American educational institutions. While in some countries of the world, such as Finland, Italy, Morocco, non-standard grammatical or lexical forms are explained by the regional / geographical origin of the speakers, in the United States they are characterized in terms of intellectual abilities and achievements. African-Americans are forced to conform to European-American society in order to succeed in life, and this conformity ultimately means “eradication” black language and the adoption of the linguistic norms of the white middle class.

Education The brightest example of discriminations connected with Black English concerns school education. In 1996 there was a question about whether African English is an independent language or “bad language” – a wrong form of Standard English. Teachers in Oakland wanted to let their African American students to speak the language they were used to speak at home, in other words, not to correct their “mistakes”, but say “How is it in Standard English?” There were a lot of debates concerning this question. This video can shed the light into this question.

Statistics tell that now the level of education is higher among white people than among Afro-Americans. The percentage of Blacks age 25 and older with a high school diploma or more was 72 percent in the 2000 census, compared to 85.5 percent for Whites. In addition, the percentage of Blacks with bachelor's degrees or more was 14 percent, compared to 27 percent of Whites.

We mustn’t judge people because of their language https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7_rihFMB78

At interaction of African Americans and white people are not uncommon cases of the negative attitude of the African American towards white, which finds expression in such units of the African American discourse as cracker, Massa Charlie, devil etc. In this case, social and historical conditionality plays the role. “Cracker" has the following meaning: “usually a poor white, but sometimes any white person; or any white uneducated person usually from Georgia. " Obviously given the word was formed according to a metaphorical rethinking of the phrase “whipcracking slaveholder”, that is, “a white person who whips with a crack”. In the discourse, as a rule, this lexeme takes on additional negative emotional meaning, thereby expressing the negative experience of the interaction of the “white master” and “black slave”:

– Sonny, what is crackers? They ain’t the kinda crackers you buy in the candy store, is they? – No, the crackers down South is white people, real mean white people. (Cl. Brown). Going to New York was good-bye to the cotton fields, good-bye to “Massa Charlie”. (Cl. Brown).

Examples of Black English Lets have a lesson on Black English from a real Afro-American man: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Duof1hVFeuI&t=4s

African American English with Will Smith