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Analysis of Prosodic Variation of African American English

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Analysis of Prosodic Variation of African American English

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references:

Do you speak American . for educators . Curriculum . College . AAE | PBS. (n.d.). https://www.pbs.org/speak/education/curriculum/college/aae/

Greenwood, S. (2024, April 14). Facts about the U.S. Black population. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/fact-sheet/facts-about-the-us-black-population/

Kester, E. (2022, June 10). African American English articulation differences and language characteristics. Bilinguistics. https://bilinguistics.com/african-american-english-articulation-differences-and-language-characteristics/

MULTiCSD - African American Vernacular English (AAVE). (n.d.). https://sites.google.com/pdx.edu/multicsd/global-languages/african-american-vernacular-english-aave?authuser=0

Oxford Dictionary of African American English (ODAAE). (n.d.). The Hutchins Center for African & African American Research. https://hutchinscenter.fas.harvard.edu/odaae

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Dirk (1994) stated that,

There is the fact that words may mean several things, as with the more restricted and the more general reading.

The same kind of referent may be named by various semantically distinct lexical categories

The same kind of referent may be named by various words, which may or may not differ from a semantic point of view; this type of variation, then, encompasses the previous one

The fact that a specific lexical phenomenon (such as a preference for expressing a particular meaning by means of one item rather than another) may be subject to the influence of contextual factors, like a speech situation asking for a particular style, or geographical distinctions among groups of speakers.

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African American English(AAE) regionally has the highest concentration of Black people in the United States more than half (56%) live there (2022). Another 17% each live in the Midwest and Northeast, and 10% live in the West.

According to Oxford Languages, a division of Oxford University Press and publisher of the Oxford English (OED), it was stated that African American English, with its roots in African language and creoles, has been a major influence on the development of English vocabulary. This has particularly started in the 20th and 21st centuries when full categories of words and phrases have been contributed and had a profound impact on the way how English is used in the United States and worldwide.

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Introduction

History of English (African American English)

History of English (New York American)

Video Transcription

Phonemic variation

Prosodic Variation

Lexical Variation

Reflection and Conclusion

References

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Hi there! Nice to meet you and may you have a good day. I am Arba'iyah binti Za'abar from LG2432C and currently in my second semester now. I am 20 years old and the country that I chose for this assignment is Africa which is the African American English.

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African American English (AAE) originated from contact between Africans and Whites during slavery. The trajectory of slavery in the United States was different from that in the Caribbean, but in areas where population ratios and time frames were most like those in the Caribbean, a creole language, Gullah, emerged. In other areas, various degrees of creolization may have taken place. As a result, early AAE was not monolithic and included some regional variation. In recordings with former slaves and African Americans born during the last half of the 19th century, the reflexes of AAE’s origins appear in features that have strong parallels with Gullah and Caribbean creoles, including zero copula/auxiliary, monophthongal /e/ and /o/, fully back vowels, and non-front onsets of /au/.

As African Americans moved from slavery into farm tenancy, features emerged in AAE that were shared with Southern White vernaculars. These include grammatical forms such as yall and fixin’ to and phonological features like monophthongal /ai/ and the pin/pen merger. However, even as shared features emerged, AAE maintained its distinctiveness by typically not participating in the Southern Shift that affected vowels in Southern White vernaculars. Developments during the Great Migration in the 20th century enhanced AAE’s distinctiveness. During the Great Migration such well-known features as durative/habitual be, ain’t for didn’t, and had + past as a simple past became widespread.

AAE, then, is a product both of its unique heritage and the historical and demographic processes that promoted its independent development and also of people who valued (and still value) it as a mode of communication and as an instrument for identity and solidarity.

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Analysis of Prosodic variation African American English

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Analysis of Prosodic variation African American English

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Prosodic rhythm was measured for a sample of 20 African American and 20 European American speakers from North Carolina using the metric devised by Low, Grabe and Nolan (2000), which involves comparisons of the durations of vowels in adjacent syllables. In order to gain historical perspective, the same technique was applied to the ex-slave recordings described in Bailey, Maynor and Cukor-Avila (1991) and to recordings of five Southern European Americans born before the Civil War. In addition, Jamaicans, Hispanics of Mexican origin who spoke English as their L2, and Hispanics speaking Spanish served as control groups. Results showed that the North Carolina African Americans and European Americans were both quite stress-timed overall, with no significant difference between them. Spanish emerged as solidly syllable-timed, while Jamaican English and Hispanic English were intermediate. The ex-slaves were significantly less stress-timed than either younger African Americans or European Americans born before the Civil War. This finding suggests that African American English was once similar to Jamaican English in prosodic rhythm.

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Nur Ilyana Sofea binti Mohammad Johari  (2023415878)

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Nur Ilyana Sofea binti Mohammad Johari  (2023415878)

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Hi everyone, I'm Sofea ! I'm 20 years old and currently studying in UiTM Shah Alam and pursuing LG243 as my major. This my e-portfolio where I'm going to introduce you to New York English thoroughly. I hope you enjoy reading all the information !

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According to George (2024),

Situated in southeastern New York state in the northeastern United States, New York City is a city and port situated at the mouth of the Hudson River.

Encompassing Manhattan and Staten islands, the western parts of Long Island, and a small portion of the New York state mainland north of Manhattan, it is the biggest and most powerful city in the United States.

In actuality, New York City is made up of a large number of neighborhoods dispersed throughout its five boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, and Staten Island.

African Americans made up about 20 percent of the population

Hispanics/Latinos made up about 28 percent, and people of European ancestry, or "white non-Hispanic," made up about 31 percent

Asians made up the fastest-growing segment of the population, increasing from a negligible percentage in 1970 to over 15% at present.

The majority of foreign immigrants to New York City in the 2010s (40 percent and 38 percent, between 2014 and 2018) were from Latin America and Asia.

Dominicans made up the largest group of foreign-born people in terms of nationality, followed by Chinese, Mexicans, Jamaicans, Guyanese, and Ecuadorians.

Ann (1979) stated that,

Since Verrazano discovered New York Harbor in 1524, numerous groups speaking foreign languages have besieged New York City.

New York City is a dialect island in modern English because, in spite of this influence, its English has clung to conservative elements that are absent from its environs.

New York pronunciation has very little prestige, despite the fact that New York City is one of the biggest and most economically significant cities in the world. This component deliberately alters language.

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references :

Geeraerts, D. (1994). Varieties of lexical variation. In Euralex 1994 Proceedings (Vol. 7883).

Lankevich, G. (2024, May 1). New York City. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/place/New-York-City

National Park Service. (2017). Colonial and Early American New York. Retrieved from https://www.nps.gov/stli/learn/historyculture/places_colonial_early_american.htm

Newman, M. (2014). New York City English (Vol. 10). Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG.

Sȩn, A. L. (1979). English in the Big Apple: Historical Backgrounds of New York City Speech. The English Journal, 68(8), 52–55. https://doi.org/10.2307/815156

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National Park Service (2017) stated that, After the English seized control of New Netherland from the Dutch in 1664, they renamed it New York. Because of its strategic location and standing as a port for trade and commerce, New York was valuable to own. Richard Nicholls, the colonial governor of New York, gave Captain Robert Needham this island. On December 23, 1667, Needham sold the island to Dutch shipowner, merchant, and colonist Isaac Bedloe.

"Take non-rhoticity or r-lessness - two terms meaning lack of a consonantal /r/ after vowels - as in words like four and fourth. Although stereotypical New Yorkers might be thought of as dropping their /r/s consistently, Labov notes that there is usually variation. As such, he describes this trait as a variable, which he labeled (r) - with (r-1) as the pronounced or r-ful variant and (r-0) the r-less one." (Michael, 2014)

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Prosodic Variation

i. Stress

In the video samples, the speaker emphasize the word " night" in the sentence. " I have driven with you at night. " The speaker emphasize the word " night " to make the other character realize how bad is his eyesight at night.

Besides that, the speaker also utilized the same prosodic feature of stress in the other sentence.

" Since I left you out of the loop, " , the word "loop " in the sentence is being stress by the speaker due to remind the exact phrase that the other character is using. Hence, the speaker repeated the exact phrase but emphasize it a bit more.

ii. Accent

As the speaker originality is Africa, her accent is super thick and sometimes it is hard for the other characters to understand what she says. In the video samples, she said, " I see what you are doing." but the way she pronounce is faraway different from the other character in the conversation. For instance, the word "are" was pronounce as / ɑː / where her eliminating the alphabet 'r' in the word.

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Speaker 1

1. Vowel sound

"Driven" /ˈdrɪvn/

In African English, the vowel sound in "driven" may be heard as a long sound. The vowel sound in "driven" could be with /ɜː/ or /ə/ as the way they pronounce it very thick. Hence, when the speaker said the word "driven", it may sounds like "dri-veen" with a long e.

Rhoticity

African American English may exhibit non-rhotic or rhotic pronounciation of the word 'r' sound depending on the speaker and the regional variety. Some African American speakers may drop the 'r' sound in certain contexts.

For instance, the speakers in the samples video does eliminate the sound 'r' in her sentence of pronouncing words. In the word "are", the speaker pronouncing it as / ɑː / with eliminating the alphabet 'r'.

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Analysis of Prosodic Variation of New York  American English

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Analysis of Prosodic Variation of New York  American English

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/r/ reduction (Non-rhoticity)

- The "r" sound is frequently omitted from words in New York accents. Vowel centralization and reduction that are in unstressed syllables in particular, vowel sounds can be either centrally located or centralized. - - For instance, the word "what" can be pronounced as [wʌt] or [wət], where the vowel sound is centralized and reduced.
- The word "are" can be pronounced either as [ɑ] or [ə], with the "r" sound frequently omitted completely to produce a more open vowel sound.

- "bought" can be said without the final "r" sound, either as "bawt" or "bought" [bɔt].

Clipping or decreasing of consonants

- Word endings, especially the "r" sound, can have their consonants clipped or softened. For instance, as previously indicated, "Are" can be pronounced as [ɑ] or [ə].
Pronouncing "doing" with a softened or absent final "g" sound can be [ˈduɪϋ] or [ˈduɪn].

Syllable Elimination and Simplification

- To improve the flow of speech, some syllables may be eliminated or combined. For instance, "you" could be pronounced as [jə] or [jʊ], with the vowel sound centralized and the "y" sound diminished.
- Pronouncing "doing" as [ˈduɪŋ] or [ˈdʊɪŋ] depends on whether a central or lax vowel sound is used.

New York accents can have shifted vowels

- "Bought" is pronounced either [bɕt] or [bɑt], with the "ou" sound pronounced either as "aw" or as a broad "a" sound.
- "Boat": [boʊt] or [boʔ], depending on the speaker, with an elongated or shortened "o" sound.

T-glottalization

- Especially in informal speech, the "t" sound in words like "bought" may be pronounced as a glottal stop [ʦ] rather than a real "t" sound. Consequently, "bought" may sound more like "baw'".

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African American : I have driven with you at night.

New York American : I've driven with him.

transcription :

African American : /aɪ hæv ˈdrɪvᵊn wɪð juː æt naɪt./

New York American : /aɪv ˈdrɪvᵊn wɪð hɪm./

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African American : Since I left you out of the loop,

New York American : Being out of the loop isn't fun, is it?

Transcription :

African American : /sɪns aɪ lɛft juː aʊt ɒv ðə luːp,/

New York American : /ˈbiːɪŋ aʊt ɒv ðə luːp ˈɪzᵊnt fʌn, ɪz ɪt?/

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African American : "You bought a boat"

New York American : "I bought a boat"

Transcription :

African American : /juː bɔt ə boʊt/

New York American : /aɪ bɔt ə boʊt/

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African American : "What are you doing"

New York American : "What are you doing tomorrow"

Transcription :

African American : /wʌt ɑː juː ˈduɪŋ/

New York American: /wʌt ər jʊ ˈduɪn təˈmɑːroʊ/

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Word stress

- Based on the sentence "I bought a boat", the pitch might start relatively high on "I" and then descend slightly on "bought" before rising again on "boat". This pitch contour adds emphasis to the action of buying ("bought") and the object ("boat").

- Based on the sentence "What are you doing tomorrow?", When you say "what" and "doing," the pitch might rise a little bit to reflect the rising intonation of a New York accent. After that, it might slightly descend on "are" before rising once more on "you" and "tomorrow."

Glottal-T

- T-glottalization in informal speech which the "t" sound in words like "bought" may be pronounced as a glottal stop [ʦ] rather than a real "t" sound. Consequently, "bought" may sound more like "baw'".

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To give an overall review of this assignment, we are very satisfied with the effort that we have put into achieving the success of this e-portfolio. We have done our best to analyze the differences between two different languages and dialects. Learning how they interact with each other even by using other dialects just amazes us about how languages work. The power of language is something that we would like to endeavor in the future. Not only that, but we also learned a lot from this assignment. For instance, how do you communicate with people from other nations who have a thick accent? We found out that this assignment was really helpful for our future. By doing this assignment, we also learned that, by hook or by crook, we have to stick with our language and be proud to spread it worldwide. Last but not least, we hope that all languages tend to evolve and intersect with broader linguistic and social trends, as this is crucial for linguistic justice. By embracing the diversity of language varieties, we could foster greater empathy, appreciation, and understanding across communities.

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lexical variation of African American and New York American English

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lexical variation of African American and New York American English