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Professional Development Unit/Session Two
African American English

Overview of Session

As MacNeil continues his journey through the Midwest (in the last part of Episode One), he goes to Detroit (section 1.9) where he focuses on the language of African Americans, including a group of hip-hop artists. Because African American English (AAE) is well-known but not always well understood and because social dialects of American English can be problematic in schools, this second session focuses on AAE.  A segment of the film includes a discussion of the history of AAE and interviews with people who participated in the events surrounding the 1979 Ann Arbor Decision regarding AAE and education. An alternate theory of the history of AAE is presented in a nine-minute segment from Episode Two (at 2.6), which is based on recordings of freed slaves made following the Civil War.

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Topics

  • The history of African American English
  • The patterns of African American English
  • The social status of African American English

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Key Ideas

  • AAE is a social speech variety. It has a grammatical system that is as regular and systematic as that of Mainstream (Standard) American English, which is another social speech variety. AAE is not a substandard, uneducated, or lazy way of speaking. More information about this topic can be found on the CAL Web site at the following link: Ebonic Need Not Be English.
  • There is debate about some aspects of the history of AAE, but researchers agree that its roots are as deep as those of other social and regional varieties of American English.
  • Despite the dialect’s linguistic standing and its long history, there can be negative social consequences to speaking AAE in some settings. Speakers of AAE face discrimination because of persistent stereotypes about the dialect and its speakers. In schools, for example, speaking AAE has been stereotypically regarded as evidence of limited academic ability. In other settings, speakers of AAE may face discrimination via language profiling, which can occur during phone conversations.
  • Not all African Americans speak AAE exclusively, and not all people who use AAE are African Americans. Some African Americans almost always speak Mainstream (Standard) American English, using some features of AAE for special effect. Some non-African Americans use AAE features in that way.
  • AAE has important social functions: Using AAE features signals solidarity with others who use this dialect.

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Key Terms

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Objectives

Teachers will:

  • Understand the inaccuracies inherent in language stereotypes and their implications for education.
  • Understand the role that AAE plays in American culture.
  • Identify some of the linguistic features that characterize AAE and the patterns
    of their use.
  • Understand how teacher reactions to non-mainstream dialects can affect student engagement and learning.
  • Relate this segment’s key ideas to their daily work in schools.

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Video Sections Used in this Unit

Do You Speak American? is available on both DVD and conventional videotape. Guides for accessing specific sections of the video have been formatted as follows:

Description/Episode         DVD Section      VT Time Code     Running Time                        

Hip Hop (DYSA/1)                   2.6                        [01:27:19]              (8:43)
For more information on accessing the video click here.   

 

In this unit:

African American English in Detroit (DYSA/1)   
1.9a-9b    [ 01:40:43]     (5:50)      

Dialect in schooling, the 1979 Ann Arbor decision (DYSA/1)    
1.10a   [01:44:20]    (5:45)      

Hip-Hop (DYSA/1)     1.11a   [01:50:17]  (4:01)

Earlier African American English from Springville, Texas (DYSA/2)  
2.6a   [01:28:17]   8:13       


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Description of Segments

African American English in Detroit (DYSA/1)     1.9a-9b    [ 01:40:43]     (5:50)     

MacNeil and linguist John Baugh visit the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History where they discuss the history of AAE, beginning with enslaved peoples in West Africa. Their voices can still be heard among speakers of Gullah, who now live mostly in the Sea Islands area of coastal South Carolina and Georgia.

Dialect in schooling, the 1979 Ann Arbor decision (DYSA/1) 
1.10a   [01:44:20]    (5:45)

MacNeil interviews key members of a class action lawsuit brought in 1977-1979, Martin Luther King Junior Elementary School Children v. Ann Arbor School District Board, including three of the students; a mother; the case social worker, Ruth Zweifler; and one of the prosecuting lawyers, Kenneth Lewis. Key participants’ testimonials provide insights into the linguistic prejudice that motivated the case and that continues today.

Hip-Hop  (DYSA/1)  1.11a   [01:50:17]  (4:01)

Members of the hip-hop group, Athletic Mic League, talk about some of the words that they use to describe their performances.

Springville: African American English in Texas (DYSA/2)    2.6a   [01:28:17]   8:13

Two linguists, Guy Bailey and Patricia Cukor-Avila, have been conducting research in the rural community of Springville, Texas, for more than 17 years. The section includes a brief interview with Willie (a pseudonym), an elderly African American man from the community, and Library of Congress recordings of former slaves made in the 1930s.

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Background Information

Before watching the film, all group members should read the following background information about African American English. These readings provide background information about this session’s major themes. Reading them will enhance the group’s ability to discuss the ideas and questions that arise in the video.

The facilitator may also wish to have group members read one or more of the following online resources. Each group member could read one article and report on its content to the group.

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Discussion Questions & Activities


Pre-Viewing Questions and Activities

1. Based on the overview, background information, and key ideas, what questions do you have before viewing?

2. Review the key terms. Define them on your own before consulting the glossary. Back to Top

Post-Viewing Questions

African American English in Detroit

1. Linguistic Profiling/John Baugh: The housing agents that Baugh calls make assumptions about him based on his voice and respond accordingly. Listen to Baugh’s production of African American English, Chicano English and Standard English. Does a person have to be African American to speak AAE? Does a person have to be Chicano to speak Chicano English? Is there a connection between ethnicity and Mainstream (Standard) English?  What conclusions do you draw about the relationship of language and ethnicity? 

2. Linguistic Profiling/John Baugh: The ethnic guise that Baugh uses when calling housing agencies influences how they respond to him. In what ways does the speech of your students affect the way you respond to them? Do you respond the same to a student who is using vernacular speech as to a student who is using more mainstream speech? Explain.

3. Linguistic Profiling/John Baugh: When you receive a telephone call from someone that you do not know, what kinds of assumptions do you make about the stranger on the telephone? List and discuss some advantages and disadvantages of making assumptions based on oral language alone.

4. Creole/Gullah, language mixing: In the film, we see that African Americans living on the Sea Islands off the coast of South Carolina and Georgia speak a language that is different from AAE. What geographical features have allowed the trade languages and Gullah to persist while African Americans in other parts of the United States have changed their speech? Are there groups of students at your school who have distinctive ways of speaking? Do you think that ways of speaking help to maintain separation between groups of students?  Explain.

Dialect in Schooling, the 1979 Ann Arbor decision  

5. Ann Arbor, MI: MacNeil says: “When they spoke as they did at home—in African American English—their instructors simply assumed they couldn’t do school work.” Can you think of students who do well academically who do not always use Mainstream (Standard) English? How do you think language influences teacher expectations of students?

6. Ann Arbor, MI: The lawyer who tried the Black English case, Kenneth Lewis, says that a person applying for a job in his law firm would require particular language skills—and that if he himself wanted to work as a DJ for an R & B (rhythm and blues) station, he would need a different set of language skills. What sets of language skills do teachers need? What contrasting language styles do you use when you’re not in the classroom?

Hip-Hop

7. Hip-Hop: The hip-hop group, Athletic Mic League, uses a specialized set of terms such as pronasty and spittin’. What groups at your school seem to have their own specialized terms (sports teams, band, activity groups, etc.)? Are they new words or are they new meanings for old words? What specialized terms do teachers use at school? Why do groups use terms in unique ways?

Springville: African American English from Springville, Texas

8. Slavery in Texas: Linguists Guy Bailey and Patricia Cukor-Avila maintain that the distinctive language variety used by African Americans was formed primarily in the 20th century and that it may still be becoming more dissimilar from mainstream American English. Discuss what might have caused a divergence of AAE from other varieties of English following the end of slavery.

9. Slavery in Texas: MacNeil concludes section 2.6 by saying, “More separate languages mean more separate peoples.” Do the many varieties of English spoken in the U.S. function to divide people, or do they just signal divisions in the society that exist for other reasons? Do students separate into groups based on language or do groups develop particular ways of using language to distinguish them from other groups (or both)? Are you aware of speakers using various modes of expression that are associated with speech communities other than their own?
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Post-Viewing Activities

1. Answering Your Questions: Go back to the questions that you identified before viewing. Did you get your questions answered as you watched the video and talked about it with your colleagues? What new questions do you have?

2. Thinking About the Classroom: Refer to the key ideas in this segment. Are there any that you would like to discuss with your students? How would you introduce them to your students? High school teachers may want to consider developing lessons using the DYSA AAE high school curricular unit.

3. Ann Arbor, MI: The lawyer who tried the Black English case, Kenneth Lewis, says that a person applying for a job in his law firm would require particular language skills—and that if he himself wanted to work as a DJ for an R & B (rhythm and blues) station, he would need a different set of language skills. Imagine that you have a student who has asked you for advice on how to prepare for a career as a lawyer. What advice would you give that student about language? What resources would you suggest the student make use of? What would you do if the student wanted to be a radio DJ or an actor?  Would your advice differ for students of different ethnicities?

4. Hip-Hop Vocabulary: Many hip-hop artists pride themselves on their lyrical ability and spontaneous creativity. The hip-hop group Athletic Mic League created the word pronasty by combining professional and nasty and defined it as having professional lyrical ability. To begin to appreciate the linguistic creativity involved in hip-hop, create a new word that pertains to your profession by combining a mainstream word with a slang term. How is your word used? In what situations would it be useful?

5. Habitual be Exercise. One of the most noticeable features of AAE is the use of uninflected be to indicate habitual or recurring actions, as in a sentence like “He always be late for dinner.” This use is called habitual be. Habitual be is NOT typically used in sentences indicating long-term states or one-time actions. For example, speakers of AAE would say “He’s nice” or “He nice” rather than “He be nice” and “He’s late tonight” or “He late tonight” rather than “He be late tonight.”

The following dialogue demonstrates how speakers use habitual be. (This dialogue was invented in order to show the use of habitual be; it is not a transcript of an actual conversation.) To learn how habitual be works, locate all the uses of the to be verb in the dialogue, including habitual be. In each case, indicate what form of be is used and why. Support your answers by referring to the context surrounding the to be verb each time it is used (look for supporting clues from the context that imply a recurring act). What does this exercise demonstrate about the regularity of habitual be.  Why is that important?  What would you say to someone who believes that AAE is sloppy?

Mary: How’d you like pastor’s sermon today?

Katrina: Oh Momma! He be preachin’ ’bout curing world hunger every week! Sometimes, his sermons be gettin’ me so hungry!

Mary: Oh, now stop it! You’re gettin’ on my nerves today. I’m gonna fix dinner as soon as I can. I tell you, child—it’s a good thing I be prayin’ for you!

Katrina: Sorry, momma. I know you always be telling me to think before I speak. It’s just—when it come to food, I be forgettin’ myself. The pastor is a nice man, and you’re the best momma ever!

6. Quiz

Because speakers who use habitual be follow implicit grammatical rules for where it can be used and where it can’t, only one of the sentences in each pair below is right. Choose the one sentence in which habitual be would be used in AAE and explain your choice:

1. a. Sometimes my ears be itchin’.

    b. My ears be itchin’ right now.

 

2. a. Momma be workin’ today.

    b. Momma be workin’ every day.

 

3. a. I be tellin’ you just now, I ain’t hungry!

    b. I always be tellin’ you I ain’t hungry, but you never listen.

 

4. a. That baby be so cute!

    b. That baby be laughin’ and playin’.

 

5. a. They be singin’ ’cause they in the choir.

    b. They be singin’ so loud right now I can’t hear myself think! 

7. Hypothetical: Imagine that you are an African American living in a community in which everyone communicates in Standard English in a range of situations calling for more formal through quite informal language use. You are able to use both AAE and Standard English  with ease. What would your experience in this community be like if you only used AAE. How would this experience change if you only used Standard English? How would it change if you used both AAE and Standard English, and when would you use each? 

8. Understanding Linguistic Patterns of AAE: Consult the book by Green or the one by Rickford and Rickford to select another feature of AAE not mentioned in this unit. You could also use your own knowledge of AAE for this activity, but you would need to check one of these resources to be sure that your description was accurate. Write a short description of the feature in your own words. Listen for this feature being used in conversation and on television. In what contexts is the feature used?

9. Understanding Linguistic Patterns of AAE: Consult the AAE word database. Do you have any additions?

10. Thinking About Teaching: What aspects of this segment have affirmed the way that you teach your students or interact with their parents? What aspects have caused you to challenge the way that you teach students or interact with their parents?

Extension Activities

1.  Dialects in Literature: Notice the use of AAE in novels and figure out why the author uses those features rather than Standard Mainstream English features.


2. Observing the functions of AAE:  As you listen to AAE being used in conversation in and out of school, ask yourself about its social value. Some people believe that AAE is never appropriate in a school setting.  Think about whether you agree.

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Related Resources

WEB RESOURCES

Baron, D. "Hooked on Ebonics": A re-visitation of the issues that surrounded the Oakland Ebonics controversy in the late 1990s and a discussion of the linguistic and social status of African American English.

Eble, C. "Sociolinguistics Basics": An introduction to the scientific study of the intersection between language and culture.

Cutler, C. "Crossing Over": A discussion of the phenomenon by which some White, suburban, adolescent males incorporate aspects of AAE into their speech.

Baugh, J. "Ebony + Phonics: Comprehending Ebonics": A description of inaccuracies in media reports of the Ebonics resolution passed by the Oakland School Board in 1996 and continued widespread misunderstanding of it.

Wolfram, W. & Torbert, B. "When Worlds Collide": An accessible discussion of the history of African American English.

Transcript of the AAVE Class Action Suit

PRINT RESOURCES

Green, L. J. (2002). African American English: A Linguistic Introduction. New York: Cambridge.

A linguistic introduction to the history, sounds, and structures of African American English. This text examines the linguistic and social status of African American English and its use in modern American culture.

Lippi-Green, R. English With an Accent. (1997). New York: Routledge.

Attitudes toward accents and dialects, including AAE, are institutionalized in courts and perpetuated in the media and at work. Those whose accents are not considered prestigious may suffer discrimination.

Rickford, J.R. & Rickford, R. J. (2000). Spoken Soul: The Story of Black English. New York: John Wiley.

This engaging and comprehensive account of Black English (also known as African American English [AAE]) includes discussions of the artistic forms associated with AAE, pronunciation and grammatical patterns, the history of AAE, AAE and education, and language and identity. This is a must-read for anyone interested in getting the real story on African American English—what it is, what it isn’t, and how it got to be the way it is.

Smitherman, G. Talkin that Talk: African American Language and Culture. (1999). New York: Routledge.

This volume brings together Smitherman’s well-informed writings on the interrelationships among language, education, and culture in African America.

Wolfram, W. & Schilling-Estes, N. (2005). American English: Dialects and Variation, 2nd ed. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell.

Intended for readers with little or no background in linguistic science, this college-level textbook includes a chapter on AAE as well as chapters on the range of regional, social, and ethnic variation in American English; language and gender; style shifting; the history of English in America; and the general nature of language variation.

Other Resources

Adger, C.T.& Schilling-Estes, N. African American English: Structure and Clinical Implications. CD-ROM. Rockville, Md.: American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, 1994.

Intended for training speech/language pathologists, this resource identifies and exemplifies features of AAE.

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Video Key:

DVD Episode & Chapters: For DVD users, DYSA has been broken down into episodes and chapters. The term chapter is industry standard for sections or "breaks" programmed into the DVD video. A number indicating the DYSA episode will always be followed by a number indicating the DVD chapter within an episode. (i.e. 1.2 is Episode 1, Chapter 2. The numbers 1.2 appear on-screen for DVD users.) DVD users may watch a DYSA episode straight through or alternatively, jump to specific sections of the program by referring to a main menu available on the DVD.

Chapter Description
Chapter (or section) descriptions are available on-screen for DVD users only, and include a text description along side  the episode number and the chapter number within the episode (i.e. 1.2 Pronunciation in Maine). Videotape users will need to refer to printed versions of the curricular units to benefit from the chapter descriptions.

Running Time The running time indicates the length of the section of video.

Videotape (VT) Time Code Videotape users should fast forward or rewind to the corresponding number displayed in the videotape counter window in the front of the videotape playback device. (i.e. Videotape users should insert the videotape in the player and shuttle to [01:27:19] in the counter window to see the beginning of the Springville,Texas section.)

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Do You Speak American? professional development materials for educators were produced by the Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL) in Washington, DC. This material was made possible by a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York. The statements made and views expressed are solely the responsibility of the Center for Applied Linguistics.

Sponsoredby:

National Endowment for the Humanities Hewlett Foundation Ford Foundation   Arthur Vining Davis Foundations Carnegie Corporation

National Endowment
for the Humanities

William and Flora Hewlett
Foundation

Ford
Foundation

Rosalind P.
Walter

Arthur Vining
Davis Foundations

Carnegie
Corporation of New York