African American Vernacular English

Suvorova V. African American Vernacular English : bachelor’s paper : 035 Philology / Suvorova Vladyslava. - Kyiv, 2021. - 57 с.

African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is spoken by the majority of African Americans, mostly in the inner-city areas of New York, Boston, Detroit, Philadelphia, Washington, Cleveland, Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, but it is also spoken in rural areas in the casual speech of adults [22]. The origin of this English variety is still a quite controversial topic amongst scholars, Rickford [32, p. 154] suggests that it may be “a development of a creole”, while Wolfram [47, p. 12] suggests that it “derived directly from British-based dialects”. Labeling this vernacular has corresponded to the changing terminology for naming African Americans throughout history. Accordingly, other labels used include Nonstandard Negro English, Black English, Black English Vernacular, and Ebonics. However, contemporary linguists choose to call it AAVE. Regardless of the origin and name of the variety, the speech of black Americans carries specific grammatical and phonological features which demonstrate that it is a structured and systematic language variety rather than mere careless speech.
The object of this study is African American Vernacular English, and the subject is its peculiar features.