Media Contacts:
Dr. Walt Wolfram, 919/515-4151
Chad Austin, News Services, 919/515-3470

April 30, 2003

Linguist Wins Grant to Advance Study of Black Speech

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The new study is a continuation and expansion of previous research Wolfram conducted in Hyde County, N.C. Based on those findings, Wolfram concluded that early AAVE developed regionally before it diverged as part of a national trend during the 20th century. Wolfram
summarized the results of that study in a book he co-authored with Dr. Erik Thomas, associate professor of English at NC State, titled “The Development of African American English.”

“When we investigated African-American speech in Hyde County, we found that it was much more regional, but in the 20th century it started acclimating to urban norms elsewhere,” Wolfram said. “Although we have a theory, you can’t base a theory on one isolated community. That’s why we need to expand our research into other communities and find out what factors contribute to the development of African-American speech.”

To test his theory, Wolfram and a team of researchers from NC State will examine speech patterns in rural African-American communities in Roanoke Island, a coastal community located between the North Carolina mainland and the Outer Banks; Texana, a mountain community located in Cherokee County; and Princeville, a coastal plain community located in
the eastern portion of the state. Researchers will conduct interviews with three generations of blacks and whites of both genders in each region and then analyze the speech differences.

Wolfram said these locations were chosen because each community has been the site of stable, continuous African-American settlement dating back to the 1800s. Additionally, each area is unique in terms of geographic location, regional dialect and cultural setting.

For instance, Roanoke Island was established as a freedman’s colony during the Civil War. Approximately 150 African Americans whose ancestors came from the settlement currently reside on the island. The town of Texana was established by former slaves after the Civil War and is the largest enduring African-American community in the Appalachian mountains of North Carolina. Princeville, located about 60 miles east of Raleigh, is a rural community founded by former slaves after the Civil War and is the first incorporated black town in the United States.

“The real answers about the origin of African-American speech lie in these isolated rural areas that give us a picture into the past,” Wolfram said. “We maintain that the key to reconstructing where African-American speech came from and how it is changing is in the small, isolated communities that have been separate from mainstream society. We assume that language will not change as rapidly in those areas because it will not be as affected by outside influences.”

Wolfram said numerous factors, such as a community’s size, values, cultural identity, outside influences, and interaction with urban areas, all contribute to the change and rate of change in black speech.

For example, in some African-American communities in the Smoky Mountains, Wolfram’s research team discovered that older and younger blacks sound like local white speakers, but middle-aged blacks sound more like urban blacks. Wolfram claims the speech differences are a result of middle-aged blacks from the region traveling and interacting with blacks in urban areas such as Atlanta. They then incorporate characteristics of urban black speech into their own speech. In another area, researchers discovered a lone black teenager who sounds like local whites because he has no black peers with whom to connect and interact.

“What we’re finding is that different communities have different trajectories of change,” Wolfram said. “There are communities where African-American speech is becoming more similar to the white varieties, communities where it’s becoming more different and communities where it’s sort of maintaining itself. It’s not simply that African-American speech has become more divergent. There are all these factors that determine its path of change over time.”

Due to the sensitive nature of research related to the history and development of AAVE, Wolfram plans to incorporate the findings of his study into a dialect awareness curriculum being prepared for eighth-grade students in North Carolina. His studies of AAVE will also be included in a documentary series on dialects that is currently under production for North Carolina public television.

“It’s highly controversial to both blacks and whites,” said Wolfram, who is a past president of the Linguistic Society of America and the American Dialect Society. “Everybody has an opinion about Ebonics. Our task is to get the facts right and inform the public.”

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