Books by John R. Rickford
More Books by John Rickford
He is the author of numerous scholarly articles, and several books, including
- Editor of A Festival of Guyanese Words (1978)
- Dimensions of a Creole Continuum (1987)
- Co-editor of Analyzing Variation in Language (1987)
- Sociolinguistics and Pidgin-Creole Studies (1988)
- Co-editor of African American English (1998)
- 'AFRICAN AMERICAN VERNACULAR ENGLISH (1999)
- Co-editor of Creole Genesis, Attitudes and Discourse (1999)
- Co-editor of Style and Linguistic Variation to appear (2001)
- Co-editor of Language in the USA to appear (2001)
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Spoken Soul:
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Editorial Reviews
In 1996, an America Online poll about Ebonics sparked more responses
than did its survey on O.J. Simpson. And that's just a taste of the
controversy and debate that Black English has provoked over the
years. Called "Spoken Soul" by Claude Brown, author of Manchild in
the Promised Land, the dialect of African Americans has been lauded,
derided, questioned, and discussed for decades, but never so
comprehensively and fairly as in this historic, sociologic, and
linguistic overview and analysis by John Russell Rickford (the
Martin Luther King Jr. Centennial Professor of Linguistics at
Stanford University) and Russell John Rickford (a journalist,
formerly of the Philadelphia Inquirer).
They discuss the attitudinal impact of socioeconomic factors, as well as the effect of generation and gender. They look at the place of black vernacular in literature and family, identity and culture, education and politics. And they track previous debates, from Paul Laurence Dunbar's considerations in the late 1800s to the black intelligentsia of the Harlem Renaissance to the issues raised by the civil rights movement of the 1960s to the recent Ebonics discourse.
Part 2, entitled "This Passion, This Skill, This Incredible Music,"
takes a close look at the richness of Spoken Soul, as recorded in
literature (both black and white), from John Leacock's 1776 play The
Fall of British Tyranny to DMX's rap lyrics of today. They look at
the language of preachers and comedians, actors and singers, and
scores of writers, and then they delve deeper, into the components
of the living language, examining the vocabulary, pronunciation,
grammar, and history of the black vernacular. And finally, the
Rickfords discuss the role of Spoken Soul in terms of African
American identity. The result? A thoughtful, erudite, and
provocative narrative that lifts the discussion of Black English out
of the knee-jerk negativity that arose from the Ebonics controversy
of 1996 and into the loftier and more appropriate realms of
linguistics, literature, and culture.
--Stephanie Gold
Book Description
A leading expert explores the roots of African-American Vernacular
English, which is the first language of millions of African-American
children and the signature sound of informal conversation among the
generations. Claude Brown, author of the classic Manchild in the
Promised Land, called black English "spoken soul." In this book John
Rickford traces its history, use influence and America's love/hate
attitude toward it.
Reviews of Spoken Soul (all positive to date) are increasing in number--we've been in the Philadelphia Daily News, the Chicago Defender, the San Francisco Examiner, in addition to the ones from Kirkus Reviews etc. on our Amazon.com site. Moreover, we heard two days ago that Spoken Soul has been awarded an American Book Award for 2000 from the Before Columbus Foundation. Award ceremonies are June 3 in Chicago as part of the Book Expo America convention. 4/2000
About the American Book Award:
"The American Book Awards were established in 1978 by the Before Columbus Foundation to recognize outstanding literary achievement by contemporary American authors, without restriction to race, sex, ethnic background, or genre. The purpose of the awards is to acknowledge the excellence and multicultural diversity of American writing."
African American Vernacular English Readings
How Linguists Approach the Study of Language and Dialect (Word Format) The Vocabulary and Pronunciation of Spoken Soul (Word Format)
Language in Society May 1999 - 6 x 9 - 416 Pages
preface by William Labov
0-631-21244-2 - hardcover $59.95
0-631-21245-0 - paperback $26.95
Praise for African American Vernacular English
'At long last, the brilliant, insightful essays by a leading scholar
of Black Language in an easily accessible collection.
Rickford's AFRICAN AMERICAN VERNACULAR ENGLISH (Ebonics) Has it all
- history and description of African American Speech, analysis of
the issues, and educational implications. A major achievement that
must be read by those who wish to know the facts about Ebonics.'
-Geneva Smitherman, University Distinguished Professor, Michigan
State Univerity, author, Black Talk: Words and Phrases from the Hood
to the Amen Corner
African American Vernacular English Features, Evolution,
Educational Implications by John R. Rickford Stanford University
An informed view of the MVE/Ebonics controversy
'AFRICAN AMERICAN VERNACULAR ENGLISH
(Ebonics) (Blackwell 1999), is a landmark in the study of
African-American speech. No one is in a better position to address
the full range of issues concerning African-American Vernacular
English from the minute details of history and description to the
broad-based sociopolitical and educational implications of
African-American speech. The perfect text on this topic."
- Walt Wolfram, North Carolina State University, author, American
English: Dialects and Variation
_African American Vernacular English_
Contents
Foreword
Part 1: Features and Use
1. Phonological and Grammatical Features of African American
Vernacular speech. The perfect text on this topic.'
-Wait Wolfram, North Carolina State University, author, American
English: Dialects
2. Carrying the New Wave into Syntax: The Case of Black English BIN
3. Preterit Had + V-ed in the Narratives of African American
Adolescents (with Christine Theberge Rafal)
4. Rappin on the Copula Coffin: Theoretical and Methodological
Issues in the Analysis of Copula variation in African American
Vernacular English (with Ametha Ball, Ren6e Blake, Raina Jackson,
and Nomi Martin)
5. Ethnicity as a Sociolinguisfic Boundary
6. Addressee- and Topic-influenced Style Shift: A Quantitative
Sociolinguistic Study (with Faye McNair-Knox)
Part II: Evolution
7. Cut-Eye and Suck-Teeth: African Words and Gestures in New World
Guise (with Angela E. Rickford)
8. Social Contact and Linguistic Diffusion: Hibemo English and New
World Black English
9. Copula Variability in Jamaican Creole and African American
Vernacular English: A Reanalysis of DeCamp's Texts
10. Prior Creolization of AAVE? Sociohistorical and Textual Evidence
from the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
11. Are Black and White Vernaculars Diverging?
12. Grammatical Variation and Divergence in Vernacular Black English
Part III: Educational Implications
13. Attitudes Toward AAVE, and Classroom Implications and Strategies
14. Unequal Partnership,, Sociolinguistics Linguistics and the
African American Speech
Community
15. Suits for Ebony and Phonics
16. Using the Vernacular to Teach the Standard
This book brings together sixteen essays on African American
Vernacular English (AAVE) by a leading expert who has been
researching and writing on the subject for a quarter of a century.
Written in response to the flood of interest in African American
Vernacular English (AAVE) following the recent controversy over
"Ebonics,' the book covers the three central areas from which
questions continue to rise from teachers, students, linguists, the
news media, and interested members of the public. In particular, it
examines the features of AAVE/Ebonics and how it is used, its
evolution and future and its educational implications.
Rickford's essays--written between 1975 and 1998--provide an informed commentary based on Systematic research rather than the opinionated misinformation that dominates media commentary on Ebonics.