s. More varied intonat ion, with “higher pitch range and more rising level final
contours” than other American English varieties. Rickford, 1999:5.
iii. Phonological Processes
Above is how the phonological features of African American Vernacular English different to Standard English. Here is the phonological processes or also
known as rules of phonology, is “the relationship between the phonemic representation of a word and its phonetic representation or how it is pronounced”
Fromkin et al, 2003:244. This part will show the processes of phonology that happen in the differences of pronunciation.
a. Assimilation.
According to Fromkin et al, assimilation is “a rule that makes neighboring segments more similar by duplicating a phonetic property” 246. In other words,
it‟s a phonological process to make the words are easy to be pronounced. For example: “the voiced z of the English regular plural suffix is changed to [s] after
a voiceless sound, and that similarly the voiced d of the English regular past tense suffix is changed to t after a voiceless sound. Fromkin et al, 2003:247.
b. Dissimilation.
Dissimilation is a process “in which a segment becomes less similar to another segment” 248. This kind of process occurs when it‟s difficult to
pronounce repeated similarly sound. For example: sequences fθ and sθ
changing them to ft and st. Here the fricative θ becomes dissimilar to the preceding fricative by becoming a stop. The words fifth and sixth come to be
pronounced as if they were spelled fift and sikst Fromkin et al, 2003:249.
c. Segment Insertion Rules .
It‟s a process of inserting a consonant or vowel, is called epenthesis. The rules for forming regular plurals, possessive forms, and third-person regular verb
agreement in English all require an epenthesis rule. It can be seen for plural formulation: Insert a [
ə] before the plural morpheme z when a regular noun ends in a sibilant, giving [
əz] Fromkin et al, 2003:250.
d. Segment deletion rules.
Segment deletion rules are commonly found in many languages and are far more prevalent than segment insertion rules. One such rule occurs in casual or
rapid speech. We often delete the unstressed vowels that are show in words like the following: mystery,general, memory, funeral, vigorous, Barbara. These words
in casual speech sound as if they were written: mystry, genral, memry, funral, vigrous, Barbra Fromkin et al, 2003:251
e. Movement Metathesis.
Phonological rules may also reorder sequences of phonemes, in which case they are called metathesis rules. For some speakers of English, the word ask is
pronounced [æks], but the word asking is pronounced [æskiŋ]. In this case, a metathesis rule reorders the s and k in certain context Fromkin et al,
2003:253.
iv. Lexical Features
As one of English dialects, lexical features also have contribution to African American Vernacular English linguistic features. Lexical could be meant as the
vocabularies of a language. In general, African American Vernacular English
speakers use the same vocabularies as the other English varieties‟ speakers.
However, the meanings of the vocabularies are some found different. Those will differentiate African American Vernacular English from other English varieties.
The African American lexicon includes the same type of information that is found in the general American lexicons. The difference is the former lexicon will
have entries for words that sound like words in general American English: however, the meaning and perhaps other information will be different from the
corresponding homonyms in general American lexicon. Green, 2002: 20 Lisa J. Green in her book entitled African American English shows some
lexical differences that found in African American Vernacular English. She explained the lexical differences, the meaning and the comparison to mainstream
English. Those will be shown on the following examples:
a. Kitchen.
According to Green, kitchen in African American Vernacular English can be meant as nappy hair around the nape of the neck, especially on women or girls
2002:16. In Standard English, bd on The New Webster‟s Dictionary, kitchen is
the part of the house where the food is prepared 1997: 227.
b. Seddity
According to Green, African American Vernacular English speakers use seddity to refer to a bourgeois black person, snobbish, and pretentious Green,
2002:16. While in Standard English, there is no word like seddity.
c. Mannish and womanish
Mannish and womanish could be used to refer to characteristics of a man or characteristics of a woman. However, these words can be used to refer to boys or
girls, respectively, who are seen as behaving inappropriately for their young ages. In African American Vernacular English, these words can be describe to the
behavior of a baby or young boy who is particularly advanced or independent for his age Green, 2002: 20.
d. Get over
Get over is one of idioms which the meaning is different to Standard English. In African American Vernacular English, get over is to take advantage of someone
or situation. It can be seen in “the students tried to get over on the teacher” it
means, “the students tried to take advantage of the teacher” Green, 2002: 21.
However, based on Cambridge Dictionary of American Idioms, get over means to feel better after an illness or bad situation or it can be meant as to accept a fact or
situation 2003:146.
e. Come
In African American Vernacular English, come is used to express speaker indignation,
for example “he come walking in here like he owned the damn place” Green, 2002:22. In Standard English, the definitions of come based on New
Webster‟s dictionary are to approach, to arrive, to appear, to occur, to reach, to result 1997: 77.
f. Mash
According to Green, mash in African American Vernacular English used to mean press or apply light pressure to an object to achieve result. The example of
using mash is “mash the button again so the elevator will come to this floor”
Green: 2002, 22. Otherwise, in Standard English mash based on The New Webster‟s Dictionary is to cause to become a mash, by grinding, crushing etc
1997: 253.
g. Some
For African American Vernacular English, some used to indicate the extremity of a state of action, it has the meaning of very. It can be seen in “Kareem Abdul
Jabar is some tall” Green, 2002: 23. According to The New Webster‟s dictionary, some is an indefinite quantity or indefinite number of people or things,
or it can be used also to indicate approximately 1997: 419.
c. History of African American Vernacular English
Based on history, English was employed in England, it spread across the world due to the colonialism. They colonized many countries and contacted to the
people. It makes them as the most spoken language in the world. That is why English has many dialects such as American English, Singaporean English,
Australian English, etc. The African firstly came to America was due to slavery. African Slavery in
America was began in early of the seventeenth century brought by the Dutch. According to John Russell Rickford and Russell John Rickford in their book
