introduce
The United States is a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural country, so it is sometimes called a "melting pot". Because foreign nationalities have the habit of living in a certain area when they immigrate to the United States, and because of the influence of the original culture and language, different nationalities have formed varieties different from standard American English when they acquire English, and black English is a typical example. African-American English has gradually become an important social dialect in the past few decades, because African-American English is a striking social class in social life.
Black English is a dialect used by many African-American middle classes. Due to the historical discrimination against African Americans, black communities and segregated schools have been formed, and the differences between black English and standard English have been strengthened.
With the gradual improvement of African-American economic and social status, many African-American songs spread to China, and more and more literary works describe and reflect the life of African-American. Many literary works reflecting black life have also been introduced to China to varying degrees. These works use a lot of black dialects, which will inevitably bring many reading difficulties to China readers. However, African-American English is not without rules, and its variations in pronunciation, grammar, spelling and vocabulary have certain rules. Therefore, this paper intends to talk about the language variation of black English from the following aspects.
First, the phonetic variation of black English.
1. Regarding the pronunciation of "th", the differences between black English and standard American English are as follows.
A. when a black person pronounces a consonant th with a clear prefix, he utters a t. For example, read "thin" as "tin" and "Xie" as "tank".
B In black dialects, they pronounce the voiced consonant th as d, such as "this" as "dis" and "that" as "dat".
C If "th" is in a word or at the end of a word, black Americans pronounce "f", such as "birthday" as "birfday", "nothing" as "nofin", "mouth" as "mouf" and "both" as "bof".
2. Omission /L/sound: Many black people often omit the consonant "l" in the middle or at the end of words, such as "help" as "hep", "felt" as "tool", "coal" as "coa" and "soul" as ".
3. Omission of /r/ sound: In the pronunciation of words such as "court, core, car, sure, door", many blacks do not pronounce "r".
4. Simplification of consonants: This is a very obvious feature of black English. When one of two consecutive consonants is a gingival sound, blacks are used to omitting this gingival sound, such as just=jus, past=pass, passed=pass, test=tes, etc.
5. When the consonants "b, d and g" are at the end of words, many blacks make them clear and pronounce them as "p, t and k" respectively, such as "bud" for "but", "bug" for "buk" and "ford" for "fort".
6. Confusion between /i/ and /e/: Blacks often can't distinguish/i/from /e/ before nasal consonants. The vowels in pin and pen, tin and ten, bin and ben are pronounced between /I/ and /e/.
7. When the consonant groups such as "sk, sp, st" are added with the plural form of "―s" or "―es" at the end of the word, blacks omit these consonants, such as reading "desks" as "desses" and "tests" as "tesses".
8. When the consonant group "STR, shr" begins, African Americans will change the collocation of these words. For example, read "shrink" as "shrimp", "street" as "skreet" and so on.
9. In black American dialect, all words ending in "-ing" or "-ing" are pronounced as "-in". For example, read "go" as "go" and "fish" as "fish".
10. Word stress: Black English tends to move stressed syllables forward, such as reading "fore'know" as "foreknow" and "expansion" as "expansion".
1 1. In black American dialect, diphthongs is a pure mixture of two vowels, with no slip. For example, pronounce "right" as "mouse" and "mine" as "horse".
In addition, in terms of intonation, the fluctuation range of black English intonation is generally greater than that of white English. They often use high notes or even falsetto. This feature is particularly prominent when chatting with acquaintances.
Secondly, the grammatical variation of black English.
The most obvious and fundamental difference between modern black American English and standard American English lies in grammatical structure. Grammar is the most fixed part. The grammatical features of African American English mainly include the following aspects.
1. Some grammatical features of black dialects are manifested in verbs. In standard American English, people often use adverbs to emphasize the action that is happening at this moment or the continuous action. On the other hand, black Americans use the same verb "be", such as:
American black English standard American English
He is studying. He is studying.
She is exhausted. She is often exhausted.
2. The disappearance and change of-s suffix. Many blacks with low social and economic status omit all inflections of plural nouns, possessive nouns and singular verbs with the third person plus-S. For example, my mother always talks. My mother has been talking.
He dances very well. He dances very well.
We see many students in the classroom. We see many students in the classroom.
Mr. Brown's truck was smashed. Mr. Brown's truck was smashed.
Julia has a beautiful shirt. Julia's skirt is very beautiful.
But interestingly, many black people add "-s" to the third person, such as: you go, I go, they go ... For these people, the "-s" at the end of this verb is not a sign of the third person singular, but a sign of the general modern tense.
3. Ellipsis of conjunctions: A very unique syntactic feature of black English is the omission of conjunctions or auxiliary verbs "be" that change parts of speech. If an action or state has a fixed time, or is in a static state, it does not happen frequently or repeatedly, then the "be" in the sentence can often be omitted.
American black English standard American English
Mary is ill today. Mary is ill today.
They are taking a walk now. They are taking a walk now.
This is my sister-in-law This is my sister-in-law
You are too short for me. You are too short for me.
His uncle is in the army. His uncle is in the army.
This article is for users who don't have a PDF browser installed. Please download and install the original text first. 4. When black Americans use pronouns to express their sexuality, they usually use "he", which is both positive and negative, such as:
She is a beautiful woman. She is a beautiful woman.
He is my mother. She is my mother.
Some blacks sometimes use accusative personal pronouns instead of nominative personal pronouns, such as:
She is a beautiful woman. She is a beautiful woman.
5. The sentence pattern "This is a ..." is often used to replace the sentence pattern "You" in American black English ... The "A" in American standard English, such as:
Tonight is a sumptuous dinner. There is a big dinner tonight.
There's nothing left. There is nothing left.
Is anyone home? Is anyone home?
An important feature of black English is the use of "multiple negatives" to form the basic negative structure, such as:
She knows nothing.
No one doesn't like the manager.
I didn't say anything.
He likes nobody.
In addition, when there are negative pronouns such as "nothing, nobody" in the sentence, blacks sometimes put negative conjunctions or modal verbs at the beginning of the sentence to form negative statements, such as:
There's nothing wrong with that. There is nothing wrong with that.
Nobody can do anything for me. No one can do anything for me.
No one will help me write my paper. No one has ever helped me write my thesis.
6. There are two forms of the perfect aspect of African-American English: one is the "ending aspect", which means that the action is completed, and its structure is "done+ed participle", such as:
They finished their work. ..
Tom closed the door.
The other is "far body", which means that the action happened in the past. "Jiujiuti" is somewhat similar to the past perfect aspect of standard American English, and its structure is "been participle", such as:
He put the bird in the cage.
They have joined the army.
Third, the variation of black English in spelling and vocabulary.
The variation characteristics of American black English in spelling and vocabulary are mainly reflected in the following two aspects:
1. We can find that American black English truly reflects their pronunciation in spelling. The first section of this paper discusses the characteristics of black pronunciation, which is also reflected in spelling to some extent. For example, the following sentences can reflect the puns of black pronunciation and spelling: C mon man, les git going dat bell ring in. It said, "Give it the mouse now." These sentences are equivalent to standard American English: Come on, man. Let's leave now. There was a ring at the bell It says "get it right away". Another example is: you get instant messaging. And g wan! What did he say? These two sentences are equivalent to standard American English: you must be him. Keep moving! What did he say? .
2. Generally speaking, the vocabulary used in black American dialects is the same as that in standard American English, while the vocabulary different from standard American English accounts for only a small part. For example, they called for peanut goober, carrying handbags, wives and partners, children and cubs, the elderly, uns, fright fore before, telephone and so on.
This paper only discusses some basic features of black English varieties. Understanding some phonetic, grammatical and lexical features of African-American English will help China students better understand the current situation of American English and read American literary works.
References:
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