Characteristics of Black English

Name:刘波 Class: English 142

1. Introduction

After reading the book Gone with the Wind and searching for information about Black English online, I have known something about it. Black people lived as slaves before the American Civil War and now live free. There are great differences between Black English and English and difficulties about understanding Black English, which attracts many scholars to do research on Black English.

2. Characteristics

2.1pronunciation

Here are some aspects about it.

Firstly, it is the deletion of /a/. Many Black speakers delete /a/, e.g: saw-sore, fort-foughtSecondly, the loss of /l/ at the end of some words sometimes is replaced by the sound /w/. For example, “I can help you.” can become “ I can hep you.”[冯红变，2004:20]Thirdly, the consonant is omitted. E.g: fact—fac, .Fourthly, ““th” is sometimes replaced by t, d, f, v. “[张文婷，2012:7]For example, “thin—tin, that—dat, mother—muvah.neither—needer[?ni?e?r]—[?ni:d?]” [冯红变，2004:20]Fifthly, consonant clusters will be simplified. Some consonants are to be omitted when they are at the end of a word,especially if the cluster ends with /t/, /d/, /s/ or /z/. Sixthly, vowels added by “ng”/?/, such as sing, thing, ring, etc, they are often pronounced into “ang”.Seventhly, some vowels are omitted. E.g: point-pint

2.2vocabulary

In Black English,the spelling is based on the pronunciation.For example,“like-lak, business-bizness, African—Affrikun.”[Margaret 2009,p.506]Besides, there are no changes in verb person and number. For example,” he do the same thang they do.Two cats-two cat”.[周文蕊，2001：7]Then some consonants are replaced by ?. For example,” when—w?en, and-an?”[Margaret 2009, p.506] There are some exceptions: “to-ter, insult-?sult, I-ah ……”[Margaret 2009, p.506]

2.3grammar

In Black English, the simplified words and sentences are used. For example: What goes around comes (whatever you do to someone will always come back to you). Next, they usually use the opposite words to express their meaning. For example, they use love to express their hate. Besides, the English sentence of

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double negation is usually used. For example, nobody knows anything. I don?t say nothing.Next, whatever the form of the subject is, the verb is always singular. For example,she ain?gwinelak a mule. Finally,” it is the disappearance of the end ?s. For example, the dog?s leg- the dog leg, he walks-he walk.”[高莉]

3. Conclusion

There are many features of Black English I haven?t mentioned. I would like to emphasize that the differences among pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary. Since the development of Black English, many changes may be made to keep pace with the times. Black English is gradually combined with English. The specific boundary between Black English and English are becoming vague. Above all, Black English is part of English. We should respect their differences.

Reference:

[1]Margaret Mitchell Gone with the Wind [M]上海世纪图书出版社，2009.6

[2]冯红变The Phonological Features of American Black English [J]山西师范大学，山西临汾，2004（20）

[3]高莉，The Phonetic and Grammatical Features of American Black English[J]南通理工学院

[4]周丽蕊,美国黑人英语的语音和语法特征[J]徐州教育学院，2001（16） [5]张文婷，黑人英语特征分析[J]西安石油大学陕西西安710065，2012（7）

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