The Controversial Dialect

The Controversial Dialect

Those who study linguistics focus on all aspects of language, not just grammatical formation and function behind words, phrases, and sentences. Sociolinguistics, "the study of language in social context," serves to connect the linguistic data regarding the structure of language with the people that are using the language everyday (Schilling). As we know, the world is comprised of multiple nationalities and ethnicities that speak different languages, but most people fail to realize that within these languages there are numerous differences between groups of speakers of the same language. The "collection of attributes" that marks the difference in speech between groups of speakers of a common language is known as a dialect (UNC). American English is known to have quite a few different dialects, with the standard national dialect being Standard American English (SAE). SAE is viewed as "the dialect of the subculture with the most prestige and power" because it is common in higher economic classes (Akmajian 237). Due to this, speakers of nonstandard dialects are commonly labeled with negative stereotypes and looked down upon as not being proper or well formed (Ahn). One of the many nonstandard, social dialects that has caused a lot of controversy is African American Vernacular English (AAVE), even though it is "every bit as rule-governed and logical as SAE" (Akmajian 238).

Contrary to popular belief, AAVE is a dialect which is "as 'complete' as any other dialect" (UNC). Although AAVE is seen as "bad English," it contains morphological, syntactic, and phonological rules that are seen similarly in other informal, nonstandard American English dialects (Akmajian 247-248). For example, speakers of AAVE are not known to use possessive morphemes, so it would be likely to hear a phrase like "They daddy dog" as opposed to "Their daddy's dog" (Ahn). Similarly the use of the possessive marker differs from that of SAE because an AAVE speaker would say "Bill cousin" instead of the more common "Bill's cousin" (Fillmore). One syntactic rule shows that AAVE speakers commonly omit the verb "to be", which non-linguists would use to say that AAVE is "defective" and "has no grammar rules" (Akmajian 238). This deletion, however, is actually controlled by a rule where the omission of the verb is only possible when the verb is contractible with the noun (UW Faculty). So instead of using the phrase "He's ugly" a speaker of AAVE would say "He ugly" because he is can be contracted to he's, which means the verb can be deleted from the sentence completely. AAVE also has phonological rules that speakers follow, such as l and r deletion in words such as help or store (Fillmore).These rules show that AAVE has grammatical guidelines,