| 词组 | Black English |
| 释义 | Black English Black English is a term going back only to 1969. It is used almost exclusively as the name for a dialect of American English spoken by many black Americans (the figures given for speakers of Black English are hypothetical—no one has counted). During the 1970s a great deal was written about Black English. It has two competing theories of origin: one theory holds that the characteristic features of Black English have their origin in a Creole at least partly derived from African languages; the other holds that Black English shares most of its features with the Southern dialect spoken by whites. The proponents of the two theories do not, it appears, speak to one another. Black English has also been embroiled in several disputes relating to educational theory in recent time and a law suit decided in some Federal District Court. All of this controversy has perhaps generated more heat than light on the purely linguistic side of the subject; it will likely be many years (maybe even generations) before the various political and educational disputes are set aside and Black English can be studied disinterestedly and dispassionately. The interconnections and influences of the various dialects of British and American English appear to be complex and subtle and well worth study; it seems a shame that so much of the effort in connection with Black English is spent on polemics. Bolinger 1980 lists three features of Black English on which almost everyone is agreed (the examples here are Bolinger's): • Omission of the copula is: [modern linguists often call this "copula deletion"]: You out the game. Dropping of the present-tense inflection -s [others generalize this to "not marking the verb for person"]: He fast in everything he do. Use of be to mean "repeated occurrence" ... : Some of them be big. [See be for other examples.] Many other features are also mentioned by one commentator or another, among them multiple negation, the use of double subjects, and the use of nominative pronouns in place of" genitive forms. This last was noticed briefly by H. L. Mencken in The American Language (4th edition, 1936). Mencken in turn had found it mentioned by the grammarian George O. Curme (Parts of Speech and Accidence, 1935). The example Mencken cites—"He roll he eyeballs"—was found by Curme in one of Joel Chandler Harris's Uncle Remus stories. Those who are interested in the subject can find several books published on it as well as articles in such periodicals as American Speech, The English Journal, and The Journal of English Linguistics, among others. Reader's Digest 1983 has a substantial article with attached word lists, and there are also discussions in Barnard 1979, Bolinger 1980, and Quinn 1980. Some specific features of Black English are treated in a general way in this book—see, for instance, be; double negative 1; double subjects. |
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