Download CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1.1. Background of Study As a

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
1.1.
Background of Study
As a multicultural country, America has various styles and dialects of English
divides, indirectly, the language into two forms which is "standard" and "nonstandar
English. The Standard English (SE) is a form of the language used in the formal plac
such as office, school, and government institution. Meanwhile, there are many ot
dialects of English considered as nonstandard which are used as a social langu
among the same dialect speakers and are not used as a formal language. Among th
dialects there is one which is called African American Vernacular English or usua
called AAVE. AAVE is a dialect that is used in North America. The speakers of AA
are American black people as Fromkin and Rodman (1983, p.254) stated:
While the majority of U.S. dialects are free form stigma to a great extent,
especially the many regional dialects, one dialect of North American English....
This is the dialect spoken by a large section of non-middle-class U.S. blacks; it is
usually referred to as Black English (BE) or Negro English or Nonstandard
Negro English.
Besides using the expression of African American Vernacular English, peo
also use the expression of African American English. McLucas (1996) explained that
expression of African American English used by scholars to refer to the unique langu
variety of many African Americans. These expressions reflect the changing terms u
to refer to African Americans themselves across the decades. Early studies of AAE
the 1960s used the terms Negro speech, Negro English, or Negro American diale
Starting around 1970 and continuing throughout the decade, the preferred term
1
Black English or Black English Vernacular (BEV). In the mid-1980s African-Amer
became the preferred term for black Americans, and by 1991 linguists were using
term African American Vernacular English (AAVE). Today African American Eng
(AAE) is the generally accepted term, although AAVE is still used too.
Now, what does AAVE actually mean? AAVE is a dialect of American Eng
used by many African Americans in certain settings and circumstances. Like o
dialects of English, AAVE is a regular, systematic language variety that contrasts
other dialects in terms of phonological, morphological, and grammar or syntac
features, as well as vocabulary or lexical features. Fought (2006, p.46) stated that AA
is a variety spoken by many African-Americans in the USA which shares a se
grammatical and other linguistic features that distinguish it from various other Amer
dialects. This AAVE dialect has a number of differences compared to the stan
American English.
As cited in Fromkin and Rodman (1983, p.259), the history of Black Eng
began when the first blacks arrived in Virginia in 1619. There are several the
suggested as the factors that led to the systematic differences between Black English
other American English dialects. One view suggests that the origins of Black En
can be traced to the fact that the Negro slaves learned English from their white ma
as a second language. The difficulties of second-language learning were f
especially for an adult. The basic grammar may be learned, but many surface differe
persist. These differences, it is suggested, were reflected in the grammars constructe
the children of the slaves, since they heard English primarily from their parent
second view suggests that many of the particular features found in Black Englis
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As used in the citation, Black English refers to AAVE.
traceable to influences of the African languages spoken by the slaves. During
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Africans who spoke different languages
purposefully grouped together by the slave traders to ·discourage communic
between the slaves, the idea being to prevent slave rebellion.
In this paper the writer chooses African American Vernacular English (AA
as the focus to be discussed because there are many movies starred by people who s
AAVE. Nowadays, there are so many famous actors and actress who get peo
attention because of their great works. Let's say Ice Cube, Will Smith, Eddie Mur
Martin Lawrence, Halle Berry, and many more. However, there are also so many pe
who do not understand when the speakers of AAVE talk. This is because of
characteristics differences between AAVE and Standard English which might le
confusion among the people who do not speak AAVE dialect.
As it is said before, there are many movies played by AAVE speakers. Am
those movies, there is one entitled Are We Done Yet? which is directed by Steve Ca
2006. This movie is starred by Ice Cube, one of great and famous actors who s
AAVE dialect. The writer uses the subtitles of the movie Are We Done Yet? as the m
of writing this thesis. The reason why the writer chooses this movie is because she
many interesting conversation including the syntactical and lexical features of A
Besides, the story is funny and it gives a description about the picture of an Af
American family who lives in a city but tries to live in a suburban area, which requi
change from them both in manners and the way they talk to others. Meanwhile
presence of this family, as the only black family in the new neighborhood, has brou
rather 'blackish' effect to the new society. The people in the new neighborhood t
follow the way that this family talks. This situation has led to the fact that the pr
of AAVE dialect has a great impact to its non-black society.
1.2.
Problem Formulation
Since the existence of the movies which are starred by AAVE speak
increasing nowadays, the writer decides to use Are We Done Yet? subtitles as the
be analyzed. Through analyzing these movie subtitles, the writer tries to provide
information and examples about the characteristics of AAVE dialects. Regardi
situation, this thesis will discuss two major problems:
L
What are the syntactical and lexical features of AAVE dialect?
2.
How are the AAVE sentences found in the movie subtitles Are We Don
compared to the Standard English grammar?
1.3.
Scope and Limitation
African
American
Vernacular
English
has
its
own
characterist
phonological, morphological, and syntactical features, as well as its own vocab
However, since the subject of this research is movie subtitles, the writer decides t
the research only on the syntactical and lexical features. Meanwhile, the scope
research is the movie subtitles from a big production film, Columbia Pictures. T
of the movie is Are We Done Yet? which is directed by Steve Carr.
1.4.
Goal and Function
This research has several goals to be reached, such as:
I.
To find out about the characteristics of syntactic features and the lexico
African American Vernacular English by analyzing tbe subtitle of the movie
We Done Yet?
2.
To find out the differences between African
American Vernacular En
sentences which can be found in the movie subtitles Are We Done Yet? to
Standard English grammar.
Meanwhile, tbe functions of this research are:
I.
To help the reader of this thesis to get more knowledge about tbe Af
American Vernacular English including its syntactic and lexical features.
2.
To improve the reader's understanding about AAVE so that when tbey wa
movie played by an actor who speaks AAVE, read an article written by an A
writer, or listen to music rap performed by an AAVE rapper, they will know
the message that those AAVE speakers try to deliver.
1.5.
Research Methods
This research is conducted in order to support the accomplishment of the th
Library research is carried out to find related information. The writer uses the facili
Bina Nusantara University library in gathering the sources. She also searches for
additional information from the library of Atmajaya University. Additional inform
is gathered from several websites to complete the previous information taken from
library research. Meanwhile, since the data of the research is movie subtitles, qualit
method is carried out to analyze tbe data. The data is taken from the perspectiv
syntactical and lexical features.