CONTEXTUALIZING AFRICAN AMERICAN ENGLISH VOWELS

Kohn provides a general description of vowels that commonly occur in African American English (AAE). She then reviews the small body of literature on social correlates of AAE vowels as social saliency and vernacularity are likely to correlate with age-graded patterns of language change. While there&...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:American speech 2014-01, Vol.89, p.37
Main Author: Kohn, Mary Elizabeth
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
African Americans
English language
Linguistics
Speech
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Kohn provides a general description of vowels that commonly occur in African American English (AAE). She then reviews the small body of literature on social correlates of AAE vowels as social saliency and vernacularity are likely to correlate with age-graded patterns of language change. While there's only a limited number of studies on social correlates of the African American Vowel System (AAVS), there's a larger and growing body of literature related to questions of participation in regional vowel shifts and diffusion. These studies identify historical trajectories for the AAVS, as well as social conditions that encourage diffusion between the AAVS and Predominant Regional Varieties (PRVs). Because she tracks language change across childhood, a potentially crucial period for changing levels of exposure to the PRV, her study contributes to an understanding of the social structures that intersect with ethnolects and cohort-dominant varieties across the life span.
ISSN:0003-1283
1527-2133