Black English

When this volume was originally published in 1976, it contained completely new and original essays on the language of Black speakers of English. The contributors offer different ethnic and professional perspectives, representing fields such as linguistics, psychology, anthropology, sociolinguistics, speech and communication and their essays range from the topic of African origins to social and educational consequences that relate to grammatical and phonological aspects of Black American speech and language use. Also included are discussions of the problems of definition, historical origins, and the implications of speaking a dialect in the United States, from the political, psychological and social view. The treatment is direct and often personal, revealing the political and ethnocentric views of language, the persistence of historical influences in the face of language change, and the mutual language influence of White and Black communities. The role of language in reading, listening, speaking, writing, teaching and testing is discussed. The advantages and disadvantages of being bidialectal in a monolingual society are explored in the context of the attitudes of Blacks and Whites toward the standard and vernacular varieties of English spoken in the USA. The importance of Black folklore as an important and creative means of social and political communication is demonstrated, and the process of decreolization of languages is illustrated by using both West Indian and New World pidgins and creoles. This classic volume continues to be an important part of the literature which critically appraises Black culture.

Deborah Sears Harrison Tom Trabasso (1935-2005)

Introduction Tom Trabasso and Deborah Sears Harrison. Part 1: Definition 1. The Anguish of Definition: Toward a New Concept of Blackness Ronald Williams 2. What Does It Take to Be Bilingual or Bidialectal? Klaus Riegel and Roy Freedle 3. Toward the Parameters of Black English Gilbert A. Sprauve Part 2: Historical Origins 4. Pidgins, Creoles, and the Origins of Vernacular Black English Elizabeth Closs Traugott 5. Sociolinguistic Configurations of African Language in the Americas: Some Educational Directives Angela Gilliam 6. The Black-Southern White Dialect Controversy: Who Did What To Whom? Ernest F. Dunn 7. My Gullah Brother and I: Exploration into a Community's Language and Myth Through its Oral Tradition Ivan Van Sertima Part 3: Use 8. The Sounds of Black English William G. Moulton 9. Is There A Correspondence Between Sound and Spelling? Some Implications for Black English Speakers, Verley O'Neal and Tom Trabasso 10. Techniques for Eliciting Casual Speech Samples for the Study of the Black English Vernacular Deborah Sears Harrison 11. Black and White Children's Responses to Black English Vernacular and Standard English Sentences: Evidence for Code-Switching William S. Hall 12. Black English in Black Folklore Danille Taylor Part 4: Implications 13. Linguistic Relativity: Any Relevance to Black English? John B. Carroll 14. The Cognitive Deficit-Difference Controversy: A Black Sociopolitical Perspective M. Eugene Wiggins 15. Black People and Black English: Attitudes and De-education in a Biased Macroculture Ann Covington 16. Levels of Sociolinguistics Bias in testing Walt Wolfram.