This book was the first to provide a comprehensive survey of linguistic research into African-American English and is widely recognised as a classic in the field. This is an essential text for courses on African-American English and an important reference for students of linguistics, black studies and anthropology.

Salikoko S. Mufwene is the Edward Carson Waller Distinguished Service Professor of Linguistics and the College at the University of Chicago. He is the founding editor of Cambridge Approaches to Language Contact.

John R. Rickford is the J.E. Wallace Sterling Professor of Linguistics, Emeritus, at Stanford University. He is Past President of the Linguistic Society of America, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Guy Bailey is a sociolinguist and the first president of the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.

John Baugh is the Margaret Bush Wilson Professor in Arts and Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis and president-elect of the Linguistic Society of America.

List of figures and tables

List of contributors

Foreword

Acknowledgements

Introduction

PART I: Structure

1 The sentence in African-American vernacular English

2 Aspect and predicate phrases in African-American vernacular English

3 The structure of the noun phrase in African-American vernacular English

PART II: History

4 Some aspects of African-American vernacular English phonology

5 Co-existent systems in African-American vernacular English

6 The creole origins of African-American vernacular English: Evidence from copula absence

PART III: Use

7 Word from the hood: The lexicon of African-American vernacular English

8 African-American language use: Ideology and so-called obscenity

9 More than a mood or an attitude: Discourse and verbal genres in African-American culture

10 Linguistics, education, and the law: Educational reform for African-American language minority students

Subject index

Name index