Linguistics 136/286:
African American Language and Culture
Fall 2009

 Professor Mary Bucholtz
 bucholtz@linguistics.ucsb.edu

 Office hours: W 10-10:50, Th 1-1:50
Office: 3509 South Hall 
Phone: (805) 893-3776 
Fax: (805) 893-7769 

SYLLABUS

NOTE: All homework assignments are due at the beginning of lecture on the day they are listed on the syllabus.

Week 1: Beyond the Stereotypes of African American English
Monday, September 28 and Wednesday, September 30

Green, "Introduction," pp. 1-8
ERes: Walters 1996, "Contesting Representations of African American Language"
286: Wolfram 2007, "Sociolinguistic Folklore in the Study of African American English"

Wednesday: Reading response 1 due

Week 2: The Lexicon of AAVE
Monday, October 5 and Wednesday, October 7

Green 1, "Lexicons and Meaning"
ERes: Childs and Mallinson 2006, "The Significance of Lexical Items in the Construction of Ethnolinguistic Identity"
286: Spears 1998, "African-American Language Use: Ideology and So-Called Obscenity"

Video: "The N Word"

Monday: Reading response 2 due
Wednesday: HW 1 due: What Is African American English?

Week 3: Aspect and the Verbal System
Monday, October 12 and Wednesday, October 14

Green 2, "Syntax Part 1: Verbal Markers in AAVE"
ERes: Baugh 1984, "Steady: Progressive Aspect in Black Vernacular English"
286: Edwards 2001, "Aspectual d<schwa>n in African American Vernacular English in Detroit"

Monday: Reading response 3 due

Week 4: Syntax and Morphosyntax
Monday, October 19 and Wednesday, October 21

Green 3, "Syntax Part 2: Syntactic and Morphosyntactic Properties in AAE"
ERes: Rickford and Théberge Rafal 1996, "Preterite had + V-ed in the Narratives of African American Preadolescents"

286: Collins, Moody, and Postal 2008, "An AAE Camouflage Construction"

Monday: Reading response 4 due
Wednesday: HW 2 due: African American Slang

Week 5: Phonology
Monday, October 26 and Wednesday, October 28

Green 4, "Phonology of AAE"
ERes: Anderson 2002, "Dialect Leveling and /ai/ Monophthongization among African American Detroiters"
286: Hinton and Pollock 2000, "Regional Variations in the Phonological Characteristics of African American Vernacular English"

Video: "Linguistic Profiling"

Monday: Reading response 5 due

Week 6: Debating the Origins and Development of AAVE
Monday, November 2 and Wednesday, November 4

Green, Introduction, pp. 8-11
ERes: Rickford 1998, "The Creole Origins of African-American Vernacular English: Evidence from Copula Absence"
286: Rickford 2006, "Against Consensus: Challenging the New Anglicists' Contentions Concerning the Development of AAVE"

Video: "Family Across the Sea"

Monday: Reading response 6 due
Wednesday: HW 3 due: African American English Structure

Week 7: Discourse, Interaction, and Culture
Monday, November 9

Green 5, "Speech Events and Rules of Interaction in AAE"
ERes:
Fuller 1993, "Hearing between the Lines: Style Switching in a Courtroom Setting"
286: Wharry 2003, "Amen and Hallelujah Preaching"

Monday: Reading response 7 due

WEDNESDAY: NO CLASS (VETERAN'S DAY)

Week 8: Hip Hop Language and Culture
Monday, November 16 and Wednesday, November 18

ERes: Alim 2004, "Hip Hop Nation Language"
ERes: Pennycook 2007, "Language, Localization, and the Real: Hip-Hop and the Global Spread of Authenticity"
286: Cutler 2003, "Keepin' It Real: White Hip-Hoppers' Discourses of Language, Race, and Authenticity"

Video: "Beef"

Monday: Reading response 8 due
Wednesday: HW 4 due: African American Discourse Genres

Week 9: Representing African American Language in American Culture
Monday, November 23

Green 7, "AAE in the Media"
ERes: Rahman 2007, "Language of Survival in African American Narrative Comedy"
286: Ronkin & Karn 1999, "Mock Ebonics: Linguistic Racism in Parodies of Ebonics on the Internet"

Monday: Reading response 9 due

WEDNESDAY: NO CLASS (THANKSGIVING EVE)

Week 10: Education and Ideology
Monday, November 30 and Wednesday, December 2

Green 8, "Approaches, Attitudes, and Education"
ERes: Rickford 1999, "Using the Vernacular to Teach the Standard"
286: Fordham 1999, "Dissin' 'the Standard': Ebonics as Guerrilla Warfare at Capital High"

Video: American English Mastery Program

Monday: Reading response 10 due
Wednesday: HW 5 due: AAVE in Hip Hop and the Media

Wednesday: All extra credit assignments due

286: Student presentations Thursday, December 10; final paper due Friday, December 11 by 5:00 p.m. via email (Word .doc format only)

Final exam guidelines distributed in lecture Monday, November 30
Final exam: Friday, December 11, 12-3 p.m., South Hall 1439

 

University of California, Santa Barbara | College of Letters and Science | Department of Linguistics