For my blog I have chosen to use my popular culture website, which is www.down-south.com. Down-South is a hip-hop music site that allows people to hear new music and see people’s reviews and comments on the individual songs. I use Down-South along with a few other music sites to find the music that I like to listen to. African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is not discussed on Down-South but it is appropriated quite frequently. Many of the comments and posts on the songs are written in AAVE. Posted on the song “I Don’t Know Ya’ll” by Young L.A. and Young Dro:
written by mz.loc, February 05, 2009
this song off da chain. dro in la did they dam thang.
In this post, AAVE is used by mz. loc. A couple things can be seen like leaving out the word “is” in the first sentence. Also, using “da” instead of “the” shows the AAVE tendency to not use “th-“ at the beginning of words. In the second sentence, “dro in la did they dam thang,” the author uses AAVE structure rather than Standard English (SE) structure. Saying “did they dam thang” would be wrong in structure for SE but in AAVE sentence structure like this is understood as “They did their damn thing.”
Also, a part of AAVE in digital communication, I believe, is the changing of how words are spelled in order to give the right sound to the reader. This is used on Down-South a lot and you can tell when people don’t understand the reasoning behind the spelling alterations. In a post on a new song by Drake, Lil Wayne, and Bun B (“Uptown”):
written by al, February 14, 2009
wayne kilt that shit
...
written by really?, February 14, 2009
kilt? you are a fucking idiot. go back to first grade and learn your grammar.
You can see in the first post that obviously the author meant to spell killed as “kilt”, in order to get across the sound of how it is to be said. In the second post, this person seems to think that the word was misspelled by mistake. I see this as a disconnect in dialects, or possibly just a closed minded way to look at language.
i like how you said "African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is not discussed on Down-South but it is appropriated quite frequently."
ReplyDeleteas for IAR, maybe strengthen the revision by going on about how people are closed minded when they look at language.
I agree with your closing sentence and think that it was a very clever way to close your post. The disconnect between the dialects has been a big issue whenever looking at AAVE. I don't think that there really is anything that I disagree with and I am not confused because you explained all of your examples. The IAR strategy that you could use more to strengthen your argument would be What is being arranged. There were a few times where you had a good point it was just confusing because you switched very fast from one topic to the next and it was slightly confusing.
ReplyDeleteI think these are good examples of AAVE grammar and phonology. I'd push you, though, to find AAVE rhetorical features too.
ReplyDeleteI like the way the structure was put together and the personable aspects help.
ReplyDelete