grammatical characteristics of black english which found in the novel with Standard American English grammatical characteristics.
Different from those two previous research, this thesis which entitled “Syntactic Characteristics of African American Vernacular English AAVE in
Bad Boys II Movie“ will focus only on the syntactic characteristics of AAVE which are found in that movie without comparing it with the Standard American
English Characteristics. So, in the data analysis, the writer will collect the sentences that contain AAVE‟s syntactic characteristics from the movie, analyze
the AAVE‟s syntactic characteristics in those sentences based on Lisa J. Green‟s theory, and deciding whether the understanding of the AAVE‟s syntactic
characteristics in the movie results in the understanding of the movie or not.
B. Sociolinguistics
There are many definitions of Sociolinguistics offered by linguists. According to Judit Szito “Sociolinguistics is a relatively new discipline: it was
born in 1960s as a field of study for those who were interested in real language use and function.”
13
While Coulmas offered the definition “Micro-sociolinguistics investigates how social structure influences the way people talk and how language
varieties and patterns of use correlate with social attributes such as class, sex, and age.”
14
Ronald Wardaugh stated in the same sense “Sociolinguistics is concerned with investigating the relationships between language and society with the goal
13
Richter, First Steps in Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, p. 98.
14
Ronald Wardaugh, An Introduction to Sosiolinguistics, 4
th
ed. Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers Inc., 2002 , p. 13.
being a better understanding of the structure of language and of how languages function in communication.”
15
Then, sociolinguistics is the study of language which focuses on the correlation between the variety of language that people use
with the social factors such as class, sex, and age of them with the goal a better understanding of language structure and the language function in communication.
Variety of language, as one of the dicussions in sociolinguistics is defined by Hudson and Ferguson as “a spesific sets of „linguistic items‟ or „human
speech patterns‟ presumably, sounds, words, grammatical features, etc. which we can uniquely associate with some external factors presumably, a
geoghraphical area or a social group.”
16
According to Muhammad Farkhan ”Variety is a set of linguistics items including pronunciation, words, and grammar
with similar distribution associated with geoghraphical or social factors .”
17
Then, variety of language is a set of lingustics items with similar distribution which
correlated with geoghraphical area or social factors. Dialect, according to Muhammad Farkhan is “varieties of a language
that differ in some of pronunciation, words, and grammar from the oth ers.”
18
George Yule wrote in The Study of Language book the term of dialect, ”aspects of grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation of a variety of a language, in contrast to
accent.”
19
Natalie Schilling- Estes defined it as ”a neutral label to refer to any
15
Ibid ., p. 12.
16
Ibid ., p. 25.
17
Muhamad Farkhan, An Introduction to Linguistics Jakarta: UIN Jakarta Press, 2006, p. 132.
18
Ibid ., p. 133.
19
George Yule, The Study of Language, 3rd ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006, p. 241.
varie ty of a language, including the standard variety.”
20
Victoria Fromkin and Robert Rodman describe it as
“when the language spoken in different geoghraphical regions and social groups shows systematic differences, the groups
are said to speak different dialects of the same language. The dialects of a single language may thus be defined as mutually intelligible forms of a language that
differ in systematic ways from each other.”
21
Then, dialect is a variety of language that differs in some of pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar from the other
dialects of the same language, and associated with geoghraphical or social factors. According to Ronald Wardaugh, there are two types of dialects:
1. Regional dialects
When you travel from one location to another location in a wide geoghraphical area in which a language is spoken, and you find the differences
in pronunciation, in the choices and form of words, and in syntax of the language, then you find the regional dialects of the language.
22
According to Muhammad Farkhan
“The dialect which associated with regional factors is called regional dialect.
”
23
Then, Regional Dialects are the varieties of language which differ in some of pronunciation, choices and form of words,
and grammar from each other, and associated with geoghraphical factors.
20
Ralph Fasold and Jeff Connor-Linton, eds., An Introduction to Language and Linguistics
New York: Cambrige University Press, 2006, p. 312.
21
Fromkin and Rodman, An Introduction to Language, p. 400.
22
Wardaugh, An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, p. 43.
23
Muhammad Farkhan, An Introduction to Linguistics, p. 133.
2. Sosial Dialects
Ronald Wardaugh wrote, “Whereas Regional Dialects are geoghraphically based, social dialects originate among social groups, and are
related to a variety of factors, the principal ones apparently being social class, religion, and ethnicity.”
24
It can be concluded that social dialects is a dialect that has features which differ according to social factors.
Ethnic variation can be found in United States, where one variety of English is correlated with an ethnicity or ethnic group that is often referred to
as “African American Vernacular English”. This dialect is the one that I should explain later.
