English Department Morrison Fellowship Lecture &
Linguistics Program Colloquium
Redefining the “Authentic” AAE Speaker:
An Examination of Middle Class African American English
Tracey L. Weldon
Associate Professor
English Department/Linguistics Program
The University of South Carolina
Friday, September 7, 2012, 3:45pm
Sloan Hall 112
For decades, sociolinguists were guided by fairly narrow definitions of African American English (AAE)
that focused almost exclusively on young, urban, working class males, using a core set of vernacular
features. In spite of calls by a handful of scholars to examine the “totality of language used in the black
community” (Taylor 1975: 34), including both standard and vernacular varieties, middle class speakers,
among others, were systematically dismissed as mainstream-oriented linguistic “lames” who were far
removed from vernacular language and culture (Labov 1972). In recent years, however, researchers have
begun to question the ways in which “speaker authenticity” is defined (see e.g., Morgan 1994; Bucholtz
2003) and to paint a broader picture of AAE that brings middle class speakers into view. Using data from
Tavis Smiley’s 2004 “State of the Black Union” symposium and an examination of my own use of AAE,
as a self-proclaimed “lame,” I aim to contribute to this burgeoning line of research, with a consideration
of the following two questions: (1) To what extent do middle-class speakers make use of African American
Vernacular English (AAVE) features, previously assumed to be used exclusively by working class
speakers? (2) In what ways does the use of African American English by middle class speakers contribute
to our understanding of Standard African American English (SAAE)? Taken together, these data show
that many middle class speakers are, in fact, active participants in a more broadly defined African
American speech community and that further examinations of the variety at this end of the socioeconomic
spectrum are needed in order for sociolinguists to arrive at definitions of AAE that are not only more
inclusive, but more reflective of the variety as it is perceived by members of the African American speech
community itself.
References
Bucholtz, Mary. 2003. Sociolinguistic nostalgia and the authentication of identity. Journal of sociolinguistics 7:
398-416.
Labov, William. 1972. Language in the inner city: Studies in the Black English Vernacular. Oxford: Blackwell.
Morgan, Marcyliena. 1994. The African American speech community: Reality and sociolinguistics. Language and
the social construction of identity in creole situations, ed. by M. Morgan, 121-148. Los Angeles: Center for
African American Studies.
Taylor, Orlando. 1975. Black language and what to do about it: Some black community perspectives. Ebonics: The
true language of Black folks. Robert L. Williams, ed. St. Louis: Institute of Black Studies. 29-39.
Reception to follow in the first floor English Department lounge,
Humanities Office Building