Vernacular English is not a non-standard English with mistakes. African American Vernacular English is a variation of English that exists in America and
the linguistic features are their identity. The second problem is about the causes of two different cultural
communication among the characters. In the communications between two characters, whose different in cultures show that the characters adapt to each
other, this part is conducted to find the causes. This part involves the comparison in the communication among the characters: a black housemaid to a black
housemaid, a black housemaid to a white master, and a white master to a white master.
D. Definition of Terms
1. African American Vernacular English
African American Vernacular English is a term that refers to one of English dialects, spoken by African-Americans.
“Known also by a succession names from Black English to Black Vernacular English, Afro-American English,
and Ebonics.” Flora, 2002:21. Trudgill also explains in his book Sociolingustics: An Introduction to Language and Society that a dialect
“refers, strictly speaking, to differences between kinds of language, which are differences of vocabulary and
grammar, as well pronunciation” Trudgill, 2000: 5. In the book, The Companion to Southern Literature also stated, dialects have their own rules of sound
combination and verb phrases and their own vocabulary and performance tradition.” Flora, 2002:21. African American Vernacular English brings many
linguistic features including syntactical, phonological and lexical. Those features make African American Vernacular English different to Standard English.
2. Standard English
English is the most used language and becomes the international language. “Spoken by more than 380 million people in the United Kingdom, the United
States, and the former British empire, it is the largest of the Western languages” Baugh and Cable, 2002:4. In English-speaking countries, they establish their
own standard of English. It is taught in education fields, used by the media and by the government. Simply of it, there is no official rule to determine Standard
English as long as the English is accepted in certain region. Standard English “is
thus not the English language but simp ly variety of it” Trudgill, 1999: 118.
Standard English SE is the variety of English that carries most prestige within a country. „Prestige‟ is a social concept, whereby some people have high
standing in the eyes of others, whether this derives from social class, political strength, popular acclaim, or education background. The English that these people
choose to use will, by the very fact, become the standard within their communication Crystal, 2005:110.
3. Linguistic Features
Linguistics is known as the study of language. In studying a language, there are many things to be observed. Moreover, every language has their own
linguistic features that differentiate them to other language. English as the most spoken language in the world also has linguistic characteristics. Those linguistic
characteristics include phonological, syntactical or lexical characteristics.
Phonology is a study of the sound pattern of language Fromkin et al, 2011: 227. This study describes how words are pronounced in a language. The
sound system of a language and the processes of how it is pronounced are discussed in phonological.
Syntax is another important aspect in studying language. Syntax is the study of “how words are put together to build phrases, and with how clauses are
put together to build sentences.” Miller, 2002: xii. Syntax is needed to construct words into phrases or sentences so the speaker can transfer messages to the
listener and the listener can understand the messages well. Lexical items can be meant as the vocabularies of a language. This is
important because each language has their own words or vocabularies as their identity. In English speaking-countries, the words or vocabularies are the same but
somewhat of them are found different due to the influence of local interaction.
8
CHAPTER II REVIEW OF LITERATURE
This chapter is divided into four parts, they are review of related studies, review
of related theories, and theoretical framework. The review of related studies will elaborate the studies that have been done by the other researchers in related with
the topic. The review of related theories will conclude the theories that are used in solving the problems. Theoretical framework is the part of explaining the role of
the related theories in order to answer the problems.
A. Review of Related Studies
In this part, there will be several studies of the previous researchers, which still related to the topic of this research. The studies also discuss about African
American Vernacular English but in different sources. These related studies are important in order to elaborate the analysis.
1. A graduate thesis entitled The African American English in Georgia Doyle
Johnson‟s Frederick Douglas and Loraine Hansberry‟s „A Raisin in the Sun by Nizmanuddin Sadiq. The purpose of his thesis is to comprehend and describe the
forms of particular variety of informal English that is African American English. To achieve the purpose, he includes the distinctive features of African
American Vernacular English shown in the novels based on phonological, morph- syntactical and lexical items then compares those features to Standard English.
The difference between Sadiq‟s thesis and this thesis lies on the theories. Sadiq‟s thesis uses the theories of style: formal and informal style.
