The Oxford Handbook of African American Language (Oxford Handbooks)

The goal of The Oxford Handbook of African American Language is to provide readers with a wide range of analyses of both traditional and contemporary work on language use in African American communities in a broad collective. The Handbook offers a survey of language and its uses in African American communities from a wide range of contexts organized into seven sections: Origins and Historical Perspectives; Lects and Variation; Structure and Description; Child Language Acquisition and Development; Education; Language in Society; and Language and Identity. It is a handbook of research on African American Language (AAL) and, as such, provides a variety of scholarly perspectives that may not align with each other -- as is indicative of most scholarly research. The chapters in this book "interact" with one another as contributors frequently refer the reader to further elaboration on and references to related issues and connect their own research to related topics in other chapters within their own sections and the handbook more generally to create dialogue about AAL, thus affirming the need for collaborative thinking about the issues in AAL research. Though the Handbook does not and cannot include every area of research, it is meant to provide suggestions for future work on lesser-studied areas (e.g., variation/heterogeneity in regional, social, and ethnic communities) by highlighting a need for collaborative perspectives and innovative thinking while reasserting the need for better research and communication in areas thought to be resolved. Cover 1 The Oxford Handbook of African American Language 4 Copyright 5 Contents 6 List of Figures 12 List of Tables 18 Acknowledgments 22 About the Editor 24 List of Contributors 26 Language Use in African American Communities: An Introduction 42 PART I ORIGINS AND HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES 62 1. The English Origins Hypothesis 64 2. The Creole Origins Hypothesis 76 3. The Emergence of African American English: Monogenetic or Polygenetic? With or Without “Decreolization”? Under How Much Substrate Influence? 98 4. The Origins of African American Vernacular English: Beginnings 126 5. African American English over Yonder: The Language of the Liberian Settler Community 146 6. Documenting the History of African American Vernacular English: A Survey and Assessment of Sources and Results 166 7. Regionality in the Development of African American English 181 PART II LECTS AND VARIATION 202 8. The Place of Gullah in the African American Linguistic Continuum 204 9. Rural Texas African American Vernacular English 222 10. African American English in the Mississippi Delta: A Case Study of Copula Absence and r-Lessness in the Speech of African American Women in Coahoma County 242 11. African American Voices in Atlanta 260 12. African American Language in Pittsburgh and the Lower Susquehanna Valley 277 13. African American Phonology in a Philadelphia Community 297 14. African American Language in New York City 321 15. African American Vernacular English in California: Over Four Decades of Vibrant Variationist Research 340 16. The Black ASL (American Sign Language) Project: An Overview 357 17. The Sociolinguistic Construction of African American Language 379 PART III STRUCTURE AND DESCRIPTION 394 18. Syntax and Semantics in African American English 396 19. The Systematic Marking of Tense, Modality, and Aspect in African American Language 412 20. On the Syntax-Prosody Interface in African American English 428 21. Segmental Phonology of African American English 444 22. Prosodic Features of African American English 461 PART IV CHILD LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND DEVELOPMENT 478 23. Language Acquisition in the African American Child: Prior to Age Four 480 24. The Development of African American English through Childhood and Adolescence 495 25. Development of Variation in Child African American English 516 26. Narrative Structures of African American Children: Commonalities and Differences 533 27. Some Similarities and Differences between African American English and Southern White English in Children 553 28. Assessing the Language Skills of African American English Child Speakers: Current Approaches and Perspectives 567 PART V EDUCATION 586 29. African American Language and Education: History and Controversy in the Twentieth Century 588 30. Managing Two Varieties: Code-Switching in the Educational Context 607 31. Balancing Pedagogy with Theory: The Infusion of African American Language Research into Everyday Pre-K–12 Teaching Practices 623 32. History of Research on Multiliteracies and Hip Hop Pedagogy: A Critical Review 644 33. African American Vernacular English and Reading 658 34. Dialect Switching and Mathematical Reasoning Tests: Implications for Early Educational Achievement 678 35. Beyond Bidialectalism: Language Planning and Policies for African American Students 700 PART VI LANGUAGE IN SOCIETY 716 36. African American Church Language 718 37. The (Re)turn to Remus Orthography: The Voices of African American Language in American Literature 732 38. African American Language and Black Poetry 747 39. African American Divas of Comedy: Staking a Claim in Public Space 764 40. The Construction of Ethnicity via Voicing: African American English in Children’s Animated Film 781 41. SWB (Speaking while Black): Linguistic Profiling and Discrimination Based on Speech as a Surrogate for Race against Speakers of African American Vernacular English 796 PART VII LANGUAGE AND IDENTITY 812 42. Racializing Language: Unpacking Linguistic Approaches to Attitudes about Race and Speech 814 43. African American Standard English 827 44. African American English in the Middle Class 841 45. African American Women’s Language: Mother Tongues Untied 858 46. Black Masculine Language 875 47. Hip Hop Nation Language: Localization and Globalization 891 48. African American Language and Identity: Contradictions and Conundrums 904 Author Index 922 Subject Index 938 Offers A Set Of Diverse Analyses Of Traditional And Contemporary Work On Language Structure And Use In African American Communities. Pt. I. Origins And Historical Perspectives -- Pt. Ii. Lects And Variation -- Pt. Iii. Structure And Description -- Pt. Iv. Child Language Acquisition And Development -- Pt. V. Education -- Pt. Vi. Language In Society -- Pt. Vii. Language And Identity -- Edited By Sonja Lanehart. Includes Bibliographical References And Indexes. The goal of __Oxford Handbook of African American Language__