The Development of African American English

This book focuses on one of the most persistent and controversial questions in modern sociolinguistics: the past and present development of African American Vernacular English (AAVE). Despite intense scrutiny of the historical and current development of AAVE, a number of issues remain unresolved. Most prominent among these is the development of African American English during the antebellum period and the trajectory of change in twentieth-century AAVE. This book addresses both of these issues by examining an unparalleled sociolinguistic situation involving a long-standing, isolated, biracial community situated in a distinctive dialect region of coastal North Carolina. This unique environment provides a venue for dealing with questions of localized dialect accommodation and ethnolinguistic distinctiveness in earlier African American English. The conclusions drawn challenge the Creolist, Anglicist, and neo-Anglicist positions with respect to the history of AAVE and offer insights into the development of African American speech in the twentieth century.

Erik R. Thomas is Associate Professor of Linguistics at North Carolina State University.