dialect in novels

[Matthew Gordon]

The late Chicago columnist, Mike Royko did at least one piece written in
a mock Ebonics style. It represents some AAVE features fairly
accurately, but contains a few hyper-vernacular oddities. I don't have
the piece in front of me, so I can't give you the date. It appeared in
the Tribune, probably sometime right after the Oakland Ebonics news hit.

Arnold Zwicky wrote:

> i have an undergraduate student who's looking for a novel
> in which aave is represented ineptly, by someone (white or
> black) from outside aave-speaking communities.  ideally,
> a fairly recent novel, with an urban setting (this is so
> the student can take advantage of knowing about the variety
> in modern urban settings).  this is a small project, so
> even short stories or journalism might do; it's not like
> the student will be doing statistics on the data - just
> getting a qualitative feel for it.
>
> any suggestions?
>
> arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)