| This descriptive study examined the lexical borrowing of black verbal expressions in a mainstream newspaper, the Daily Press, the newspaper of the Virginia Peninsula. Based on the sociolinguistic theory of covert prestige, that standard-speaking males associate a sense of status with the use of nonstandard speech forms, this study investigated 57 black verbal expressions that occurred in 121 Daily Press articles from August 17, 1993 to October 14, 1996, written by primarily male journalists. The data were presented in the form of a Lexicon which examined, for each expression, the historical period, linguistic characteristics, type of article, subject matter and passage, and retention or modification of original semantics. Results revealed that the majority of the expressions originated in the Jazz and Rap eras and were characterized as coined words or multiple-meaning words. The original semantics of most of the expressions were retained in the newspaper articles. Additional findings showed that most of the items occurred in five categories of articles: Celebrity, Comic Strip, Entertainment, Sports, and Editorial. Twenty-eight or 49% of the items occurred in more than one article, with the three most frequently occurring items being cool, hip, and gig. The findings suggest that standard speaking journalists restrict their borrowing of black verbal expressions primarily to personal, non-serious, gossip, and light-hearted articles in which greater freedom of expression is allowed. Black verbal expressions tend not to occur as frequently or consistently in articles of a formal, more serious nature and more national in scope. The sociolinguistic implications of this study are that, in spite of the elitist perception of the Standard English dialect, the lexicon of some traditionally stigmatized dialects, such as that of African-American Vernacular English speakers (out groups), are valued by certain standard speakers (in groups) in certain mainstream contexts. Overall, this study revealed the dynamic role, the linguistic creativity, and the longevity of some black verbal expressions in Standard English mainstream usage, and, therefore, the enormous and unique contributions of African Americans to the English language vocabulary. |
