MIDDLE-CLASS AFRICAN AMERICANS: REACTIONS AND ATTITUDES TOWARD AFRICAN AMERICAN ENGLISH

by rahman

Rahman asked middle-class blacks at her university to listen to audiotapes of other blacks speaking and rate them according to perceived blackness.

"Findings here show that there is a strong correlation between the dense
use of certain grammatical and phonological features of AAVE, including
intonation, and strong judgments of African American ethnicity. But the attenuation
of AAVE features and use of features associated with other groups
can reduce the salience of speech as African American. The next section
will show that while the heavy use of AAVE features leads to the belief that
a speaker is black, being identifiable as black does not equate with low
judgments of standardness. Yet, it does appear that judgments of “black” or
“white” can be closely related to judgments of standardness and to judgments
of social class and appropriateness"

Use of falsetto voice or highly contoured intonation is one marker of ethnicity. SO is use of /a/ instead of /ay/.

Black Standard English was deemed appropriate at an all-black family barbeque or at a corporate meeting, whereas SE and AAVE were each only appropriate for one.