The Relation between Black and White Speech in the South

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the relation between black and white speech in the south. If the speech of socioeconomically comparable blacks and whites within the South is investigated, the alleged differences would all but disappear. Atlas methodology is inappropriate, not because it is mistaken or misleading, but because the data were collected for a different purpose and under constraints imposed by the technology of an earlier time. VBE features shared by other varieties of English are not limited to phonology. The use of nonstandard verb forms for the past tense and past participle is one such case. Another shared feature is the deletion of a relative pronoun functioning as subject of the subordinate clause. There are other features of VBE that seem to be unique—that are not found in the speech of white Southerners even of lower social classes.