Word from the Mother (Routledge Linguistics Classics)

"This classic text by celebrated linguist and pioneer of Black Talk, Geneva Smitherman, is a definitive statement on African American Language. Enriched by her evocative and inimitable prose style, the study presents an overview of past debates on the speech of African Americans, as well as providing a vision for the future. Featuring cartoons which demonstrate the relationship between language and race, as well as common perceptions of African American Language, she explores its contribution to mainstream American English and includes a summary of expressions as a suggested linguistic core of AAL. As global manifestations of Black Language increase, she argues that, through education, we must broaden our conception of AAL and its speakers, and further examine the implications of gender, age and class on AAL. Perhaps most of all we must appreciate the artistic and linguistic genius of AAL, presented in this book through rap and Hip Hop lyrics and the explorations of rhyme and rhetoric in the Black speech community. This classic edition has a new foreword by H. Samy Alim, celebrating the books influence on the history of Black Language in America. Word from the Mother is an essential read for students of African American speech, language, culture and sociolinguistics, as well as the general reader interested in the worldwide crossover of Black popular culture"--