dialect in novels

[John Rickford]

Hi Arnold:

I can't think of a recent novel or short story offhand, but media coverage
of the Ebonics controversy produced lots of inept representations,
including Jack White's "Ebonics According to Buckwheat" column for Time
(Jan 13, 1997), and other examples discussed in the "Media" and "Ebonics
Humor" chapters of _Spoken Soul_ (the book I wrote with my son Russell
last year).  And of course there are lots of similar examples from
minstreal parodies of the 19th century.  Hope this is helpful.

John


On Thu, 22 Feb 2001, 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)
>
>
>