A Tentative Analysis Of African American Vernacular English

Considerable academic interest of both sociolinguists and linguistic anthropologists in America has been aroused by the social varieties of language, among which African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is the most controversial issue. However, it has seldom been paid close attention to by Chinese scholars yet.This research, therefore, attempts to interpret AAVE from a sociolinguistic standpoint that each language variety has its particular social value and social function and AAVE is a social variety of English with distinctive features in its own right.This thesis mainly deals with some contentious issues and correlative arguments during the recent 10 years with regard to AAVE, introduces its linguistic features in the perspectives of pronunciation, vocabulary, syntax and pragmatics which can be illustrated with examples as reflected in literature and media such as Roots, Uncle Tom's cabin, SoulPlane and clarifies the relationships between AAVE and other English varieties and between AAVE and social varieties (catchword or jargon) in China. In addition, this thesis provides a detailed account of an empirical study and offers suggestions for EFL teaching in China.