Spoken Soul

Russell John Rickford, John Russell Rickford

Description

In Praise of Spoken Soul: The Story of Black English

"Spoken Soul brilliantly fills a huge gap. . . . a delightfully readable introduction to the elegant interweave between the language and its culture."
–Ralph W. Fasold, Georgetown university

"A lively, well-documented history of Black English . . . that will enlighten and inform not only educators, for whom it should be required reading, but all who value and question language."
–Kirkus Reviews

"Spoken Soul is a must read for anyone who is interested in the connection between language and identity."
–Chicago Defender

Claude Brown called Black English "Spoken Soul." Toni Morrison said, "It's a love, a passion. Its function is like a preacher’s: to make you stand out of your seat, make you lose yourself and hear yourself. The worst of all possible things that could happen would be to lose that language."

Now renowned linguist John R. Rickford and journalist Russell J. Rickford provide the definitive guide to African American vernacular English–from its origins and features to its powerful fascination for society at large.
Foreword.

Acknowledgments.

Part One: Introduction.

1 What's Going On?

Part Two: "This Passion, This Skill, This Incredible Music"

2 Writers.

3 Preachers and Pray-ers.

4 Comedians and Actors.

5 Singers, Toasters, and Rappers.

Part Three: The Living Language.

6 Vocabulary and Pronunciation.

7 Grammar.

8 History.

Part Four: The Ebonics Firestorm.

9 Education.

10 The Media.

11 Ebonics "Humor"

Part Five: The Double Self.

12 The Crucible of Identity.

Notes.

Index.

Permissions and Credits.

Sujets

• Ethnic Studies
• Black Studies
• Social Science
• vernacular
• Sociologie, société et politique
• English studies
• John R. Rickford
• African American
• American

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 10 août 2007
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780470247846
• Langue: English

Extrait

SPOKEN SOUL
SPOKEN SOUL

The Story of Black English
John Russell Rickford and Russell John Rickford
Foreword by Geneva Smitherman

John Wiley Sons, Inc.
New York Chichester Weinheim Brisbane Singapore Toronto
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Copyright 2000 by John Russell Rickford and Russell John Rickford. All rights reserved
Published by John Wiley Sons, Inc.
Published simultaneously in Canada
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, [phone], fax [phone]. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley Sons, Inc., 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158-0012, [phone], fax [phone], E-mail: [e-mail].
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Rickford, John Russell
Spoken soul : the story of black English /
John Russell Rickford and Russell John Rickford. p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-471-32356-X (pbk.)
1. Black English-United States. 2. English language-Spoken English-United States. 3. English language-Social aspects-United States. 4. Afro-Americans-Language. I. Rickford, Russell John.
II. Title.
PE3102.N42R54 2000
427 .089 96073-dc21 99-37796
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
From Russell John:
For the Almighty, for whom our souls are a witness.
For my godfather Uncle Teddy, the swashbuckler who taught me to take life in my teeth and leap.
For my father, the pacifist who showed me how to skip a rock, build a kite, and be a do-right man.
From John Russell:
For Angela, my beloved, and for our children, Shiyama, Russell, Anakela, and Luke, the pride and joy of our lives.
For my fallen/risen siblings: Peter Howell, Edward Noel, Patricia Stella, and all my kinfolk, here and there. May the circle be unbroken.
For soul speakers everywhere. May their language be better understood and appreciated, and may their enormous potential in school and life be more richly realized.
Contents

Foreword
Acknowledgments
Part One Introduction
1 What s Going On?
Part Two This Passion, This Skill, This Incredible Music
2 Writers
3 Preachers and Pray-ers
4 Comedians and Actors
5 Singers, Toasters, and Rappers
Part Three The Living Language
6 Vocabulary and Pronunciation
7 Grammar
8 History
Part Four The Ebonics Firestorm
9 Education
10 The Media
11 Ebonics Humor
Part Five The Double Self
12 The Crucible of Identity
Notes
Index
Permissions and Credits
Foreword


It s been a long time coming, as the old song goes, but the change done come. Back when I was working with the parents and legal team in King v. Ann Arbor (the Black English federal court case, 1977-79), public confusion and misunderstanding about Black English came as a shock to many linguists and scholars. Then shock waves again, almost two decades later, when the Ebonics controversy erupted among the mistletoe and Kinara of the 1996 Christmas-Kwanzaa season. The scholarly community has written volumes of commendable work on Spoken Soul (not by that name, of course), dating back at least to 1884, when Harrison published Negro English in the academic journal Anglia. However, with one or two exceptions over the past three decades, scholarly research on this language spoken by millions of African Americans has not been written up for the public at large. Spoken Soul steps to the challenge. The book breaks it down and makes it plain. At long last, the academic world of morphemes and phonemes reaches beyond ivied walls, connecting town and gown.
The Rickfords-in this case not husband and wife, but father and son-take their title from the name that writer Claude Brown gave to our language back in the 1960s. They present myths and realities about Spoken Soul, and in the process do much soul-speaking themselves, covering topics from the language of great comedians and actors to that of preachers and pray-ers. In writing that is rich and powerful-and funky and bold when it bees necessary-they dissect black writing and black speech, the grammar and history of Spoken Soul, the Ebonics controversy and media coverage of it.
The story of Spoken Soul is not an easy one to tell because it is not just about language. To tell the story right, you have to talk about the culture and lived experience of African Americans. You have to talk about a language inextricable from the complex social structure and political history of people of African descent in these United States. To get it right, you have to do what the Rickfords have done: you have to represent. Otherwise, there is no way to understand the linguistic double consciousness of black Life, as revealed here in the 1997 Howard University graduation scene with renowned broadcast news pioneer Sista Carol Simpson as commencement speaker, a push-pull scenario reenacted countless times in different versions in African America, and about which the Rickfords write with insight and eloquence in chapter 5, Singers, Toasters, and Rappers. Their message to us-in a book that is truly da bomb-is that we must claim both Spoken Soul and Standard English as our own, empowering our youth to appreciate and articulate each in their respective forums, for only then will we have mastered the art of merging our double selves into a better and truer self.
John Russell and Russell John were both at the Million Man March. And now they have come together to speak the truth to the people about what it means to talk black in America. An African American father and son writing together as a team-now that in itself is a moment of history to be cherished. One a journalist, the other a linguist; one in the academy, the other in public media. Spoken Soul is testimony to the power of this combination of kin dred spirits.
- Geneva Smitherman, Ph.D.
University Distinguished Professor
Michigan State University
Author, Black Talk: Words and Phrases from the
Hood to the Amen Corner, Talkin and Testifyin:
The Language of Black America, and Talkin That
Talk: Language, Culture and Education in African
America
October 1999
Acknowledgments

Thanks to the Stanford Humanities Center, where the proposal and much of John s writing for this book were completed, and to the Department of Linguistics and the Program in African and Afro-American Studies at Stanford, which were both supportive throughout. Gina Wein, Trudy Vizmanos, Diann McCants, and Linda Watson were especially helpful. Thanks are due, too, to former Stanford Deans of Humanities Ewart Thomas and John Shoven. Funding from the Martin Luther King Jr. Centennial Fellowship is gratefully acknowledged.
Stanford students Admas Kanyagia, Naomi Levin, Emma Petty, Sarah Roberts, Mary Rose, and Andrew Wong were first-rate research assistants, as were Joy Hsu and Damian Schnyder. Arnold Rampersad, Houston Baker, and Meta Duwa Jones provided helpful feedback with the Writers chapter, as did Tom Wasow with the System chapter. Lisa Green was generous with her native-speaker intuitions; her theoretically sophisticated work on the structure of Black English is most perceptive, and we look forward to her books. Elaine Ray and Linda Cicero of the Stanford News Service were both encouraging and helpful, and students in John s classes at Stanford, particularly African American Vernacular English, were invaluable in clarifying many points and forcing him to clarify others.
John s study and understanding of Black English have been facilitated by many current and former Stanford students, including Arnetha Ball, Renee Blake, Catherine Chappel, Keith Denning, Dawn Hannah, Raina Jackson, Andrea Kortenhoven, Nomi Martin, Bonnie McElhinny, John McWhorter, and Jacquelyn Rahman. He has also learned from his former research associates and coauthors, Faye McNair-Knox, Christine Theberge-Rafal, and Angela Rickford. His mentors, J. Herman Blake and William Labov, taught him a good deal, respectively, about black life and language. Other scholars and colleagues, many of them cited in the endnotes, also contributed to this learning. But his most significant instructors were the vernacular speakers throughout African America and the Caribbean-particularly in East Palo Alto, Philadelphia, New York City, the South Carolina Sea Islands, Barbados, Guyana, and Jamaica-who gave him the privilege of hearing, observing, analyzing, and appreciating the language.
John wishes, finally, to thank his son Russell for the many pleasures and insights that collaborating on this book involved, and especially for teaching him, by precept and example, how to write for the people. No project has ever been more rewarding.
Many thanks to the brothers of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., Beta Chapter, Howard University, who guided Russell across the hinterlands of underground hip-hop culture, and who had faith that Spoken Soul was no jive, and to the editors and reporters of the Philadelphia Inquirer, whose support and curiosity about this book helped shape its content and style. Thanks also to Venus, who loves books.
Thanks from both of us to Noah Lukeman of Lukeman Literary Management, who first proposed this project and waited pa