【精品】浅谈黑人的语言与文化

1、学号：be03110707哈尔滨师范大学学士学位论文题目：浅谈黑人语言和文化学生：李媛指导教师：许宏晨讲师年级：2003级专业：英语系别：英语系学院：恒星学院thesis paperenglish dep.star collegehaerbin normal universitytitle: on culture and language of black peoplestudent: li yuantutor: xu hongchen (lecturer)grade: grade 2003major: business englishdepartment: english departmen

2、tcollege: star collegemay, 2007harbin normal universityon culture and language of black peopleli yuanabstract: this paper aims to discuss the culture and language of black people it will focus on some aspects, such as pronunciation, the grammar of black english, use of black english, the culture of

3、the black. however it could tell the differences between american english and british english. from all these regardings, i would like to cover another theme, which is the peace. from the history of black people, it is not difficult to know the birth of black english. black peopled history has an ef

4、fect on their language. key words: black english; character of linguistic; language differences; culturei brief introduction of black english"black english11 can refer to two different language varieties: (1) the type of english used by people of african and caribbean descent who live in britai

5、n; (2) the language of african-americans (negroes) in the united states. this is usually called black english vernacular or bev for short. nblack englishn in both senses has its historical roots in a creolised form of english，which dates back to the time of slavery. creoles are languages which evolv

6、e from pidgins when the pidgins become first languages for some or all of their speakers. black english vernacular has a somewhat different history (and is a different language) from british black english this unit will concentrate on british black english most of the creoles used in europe (unlike

7、the creole variety of tok pisin, for example) have their origins in the slave trade which involved four continents: europe, africa and north and south america. as a result, most of the creoles used in britain have an element of african language patterns in their ship left english ports such as liver

8、pool, lancaster, bristol and cardiff with cargoes of manufactured goods which they traded for slaves along the african coast. slaves were boarded at different trading stations and usually had been captured inland, so that they spoke many different languages, and usually could not speak each others l

9、anguage. under these conditions, with very restricted contact between the slaves and the english crew, a pidgin developed which was used for communication not just between the slaves and their masters, but between the slaves themselves.the slave traders brought their human cargo across the "mid

10、dle passage11 between africa and the americas and sold them there to plantation owners. slaves who spoke the same language were kept apart deliberately to prevent them from rebelling. thus the pidgin continued to be used among the slaves even on the plantations. children born on the plantations came

11、 to learn the pidgin as their first language (though sometimes they also learnt an african language as well). in this way the pidgin acquired native speakers, and became a creole. because of the importance of african languages in the slave community, the creole spoken still showed many similarities

12、to african languages, especially languages of west africa, where most slaves came from. sranan tongo ("surinam tongue”)is the creole language of surinam, a large country on the caribbean coast of south america. surinam was a dutch colony for 300 years up to 1975, but english, not dutch, is the

13、source for most of the vocabulary of sranan. this is because english planters were the first to bring slaves to the colony. they stayed only about 20 years before being driven out by the dutch. but the slaves stayed on, and an english-based had taken root in that short space of time. conditions in s

14、urinam were so bad for the slaves that they died in very large numbers. fresh loads of slaves had to be brought from africa to surinam throughout a period of about 200 years. not surprisingly，the african influence on sranan is very strong. this influence can be seen in idioms with african counterpar

15、ts, like atibron meaning anger from ati hhearth and bron "burn”, wasi-bere "last childn from wasi ”wash” and bere "belly”. some west african languages have similar expressions. personal names like kwami, kwasi and abeni which are still used in ghana (west africa) were once common in s

16、urinam.ii character of black englishin the history of language forming, there is a long period of time. the earliest form is poetry, such as in shakespeare time, britain, people justify british english as the standard english the accent of british english had been taken an example to any english spe

17、aking country. with the black people were shipped to american to develop that field, the language were formed at that time. in the past, colour race people were the lowest level in the world, they were divided into another area, which is for distinguish with the white people in their social circle,

18、they could only talk with the same ones. this was their right at that dark time. this section aims to discuss black english in some aspects, such as pronounciation, grammar, and use of black english.l the way of pronunciationthe slave traders completed the great circuit by sailing back to england wi

19、th the products of the slaves' labour in their holds. more recently, the descendents of those slaves have completed the great circuit themselves by coming to britain, bringing the creole language with them. in the black english system there are some branches. a look at british black english in t

20、he 1950s and 1960s people from the caribbean migrated to britain in relatively large numbers most of these settled in cities, especially in the large english cities, and in most of these communities people from jamaica were more numerous than people from other parts of the caribbean. although the ca

21、ribbean is made up of many different islands and mainland territories, including many where an english creole is not spoken, british black english is most similar to jamaican creole, because of the larger number of jamaicans who settled in this country.linton kwesi johnson is probably the best known

22、 poet in britain who is currently using creole. his verse is spoken against a musical background (dubbing) and distributed on records, tapes and cds. the poem "sonny's lettah”，appeared in print in his anthology hinglan, is a bitch" and was recorded on his album forces of victory. it is

23、 also reproduced and copiable for educational purposes. differences between british english and british black english is as follow. read through "sonny's lettahh listening to the tape and mark (e.g. by underlining or circling) every difference you can find between standard english and the e

24、nglish used in the poem assume that where odd or unusual spelling has been used, this reflects a difference in pronunciation.now, make three separate lists to show different levels at which the language of the poem differs from standardlist sound differences - where the sound of the creole (as shown

25、 by the spelling) is different from the sound you would expect in a british variety of englishwordsblack englishstandard englishpassed/pa:s/pa: st/past/pa:s/pa:st/desk/des/desk/at the levelof sounds, it hassome characteristics which are associated withregional and working-class varieties of english,

26、 and some others which are found only in caribbean creole. some of the most important differences: the vowel of cup is like the vowel of british english cop. the vowel of all is like the vowel of british english are.the vowels of day and home are diphthongs. phonological featuresa. consonant cluster

27、 simplification, or reductionb final consonant simplification, or deletionc. final and post-vocalic -r variationd. i + n is realized as fac and i + nk is realized as acnkall of these above are the way of pronunciation.2. grammar of black englishin standard british english, nearly all nouns have spec

28、ially marked plural forms,e. g. book-books, woman-women. creole usually does not mark plural in this way, so that plural nouns often have exactly the same form as the singular, as in: free policeman. sometimes dem is added after a noun (especially one referring to people) to show plural, e.g. di gya

29、l-dem, "the girls".morphological featuressuffix -s variationa. plural -s (contextual signals)b possessive -s (contextual signals)c. third person singular -sd. reduplicated s or reinterpretation of -sin standard british english, nearly all verbs have specially marked forms for the past tens

30、e, e.g. look-looked，come-came, go-went. in black english the past tense is often left unmarked, so that it has exactly the same form as the present, e.g. a police van pull-up (standard pulled up), out jump free policeman (jumped), jim start to wriggle (started). these grammatical differences between

31、 black english and standard have given rise in the past to the idea that creole speakers have "wrong" or "sloppy” grammar. however, as you can see (especially from the pronoun example) its grammar is systematic and has its own logic. most words look like words of english but they are

32、combined using grammar rules which belong to creole alone.3 use of black englishamerica is the melting po匸 previous waves of immigrants have learned english and become assimilated. blacks should too. nthis argument compares africanamericans to other immigrants, and points out the difference in the l

33、evel of assimilation. blacks seem to cling stubbornly to their culture and language, to a degree that prevents them from assimilating. this argument fails because the comparison to other immigrants is not valid or useful. some immigrants arrived as a result of their own initiative, not in the holds

34、of slave ships. some immigrants, albeit hampered temporarily by hostility to foreigners or language differences, were accepted into our culture after a few generations without overt discrimination. other immigrants were not marked by a history of racism, and a dominant culture's need to justify

35、their low status. most other immigrants did not have to wait until the 1960!s for the right to vote, in many areas. most other immigrants have not faced a dominant culture overtly hostile to their culture and language pattern lastly, immigrants of european descent are not marked by physical characte

36、ristics which distinguish them from the dominant culture.3.1 black english in musichip-hop is one of the parts of black culture since the early to mid 9(ts, hip-hop has undergone changes that purists would consider degenerating to its culture. at the root of these changes is what has been called &qu

37、ot;commercial hip-hopn- commercial hip-hop has deteriorated what so many emcees in the 80,s tried to build a culture of music, dance, creativity, and artistry that would give people not only something to bob their head to, but also an avenue to express themselves and deliver a positive message to th

38、eir surroundings. what does the term “commercial" mean? it can take on various meanings, but in essence that term is used to label artists who have alienated parts of the hip-hop culture in their work. the high and mighty, a duo from philadelphia signed to rawkus records, summed up what commerc

39、ial hip-hop is in their 1999 single release "the meaning. mr. eon says: .they're try in? to turn hip-hop to just plain rappinviet the poppers pop/and the breakers break./9 but the disenchantment with artists who dont appreciate hip-hop as consisting of emceeing, breaking, graffiti art, beat

40、 boxing and dj-ing is not new. underground artists, predominately hip-hop purists, have lashed out at biters and perpetrators for many years. for example, in 1989 3rd bass released their first album, the cactus cee/d. throughout the album, mc serch and prime minister pete nice scold the commercializ

41、ed booty shakers like mc hammer for corrupting hip-hop, particularly on the track “the gasface they specifically call out hammer for his antics. inside the album jacket, serch sums up hiphop in '89: "there was a time when nothing was more important than the new york rap scene?9 it，s dillute

42、d, but not divided?9 to hip-hop afficionados, serch9 s quote sounds like the equivalent to a vietnam soldier letter home obviously, the group saw the possibility of the hip-hop culture being tainted.another good example of a group combatting the increase in commercial hip-hop was the boot camp clik,

43、 consisting of buckshot, helter skelter, cocoa brovaz, ogc, illa noyz and the representativ乙 the clik/s slogan throughout the duration of their 1997 release album for the people was: "commercial rap get the gun clap". a descendent of the early backpacker days, buckshot has always been oppo

44、sed to mainstream artists who sacrfices artistic integrity in the lure for more money. the underground hip-hop scene has emerged as a circuit where young, talented and intelligent emcees can thrive. their message is less abrasive and violent. while not all underground artists are choir boys, they ar

45、e not barking over mics in a frenzy either. they play small, sometimes dark and dank venues in front of a couple hundred people or much less than that. like the christians in ancient rome who held mass in catacombs and spread their religion secretly, underground artists are privately leading a revol

46、ution in these small clubs now in promotion of returning rap to hip-hop, and there probably has never been such a fierce fire lit under the artists like there is now to bring change. underground artists are fed up with how hip-hop is treated by a lot of major labels that have changed the structure o

47、f songs. in 2000, especially on the radio, you may hear one or two verses, an r&b singer lacing the track and then a hook that is repeated enough times to take up 3 plus minutes. this is a brash example of today，s state of hip-hop, but the point is made- creativity in hip-hop has been pushed asi

48、de for tracks that incoiporate overused samples, have no real message, and have virtually eliminated the dj from the music. remember when you could listen to a song for five minutes and all you heard was rakim bouncing outrageous similes and euphemisms off his tongue and eric b. blessing the is and

49、2s. not only was there depth in those types of tracks, but there was creativity and ingenuity. what about groups like afrika baambata whose songs lasted as long as infommercials. eric b. & rakim and baambata are perferct examples of the true hip-hop culture because they were innovators and trend

50、setters, and rakim never had enough to say.unless you are an underground fan, you never hear artists like that on the radio. in reality, people have been brainwashed into thinking that what they hear on the radio is hip-hop it falls terribly short of hip-hop, and may not be worthy of being called ra

51、p. since 1995, we have seen a trend in the implementation of r&b into hiphop music. the problem with that is it has dilluted the music. commercial artists like jay z, for example, know that the dough will roll in if blackstreet does the hook for one of his tracks that he, as stated earlier, only

52、 writes a couple versus to. money now controls hip-hop instead of the artists controlling it, and label execs have become more powerful in determining how an artist's music will sound. this explains the increase in the number of independent labels because artists have discovered that they lose c

53、reative control over their music when they sign on with major labels. now that fve ranted over the gripes we purists have about hip-hop as a whole, the next few chapters will deal with separate issues surrounding the decline, yet hopeful resurrection of the elements of the hip-hop culture. culture&#

54、39;s beauty is attractive. when in britain, people greet each other like this. how are you doing? what a fine day today, isn't it? among black people, when they greet each other, usually like this, however in black people they usually do like this. yo, man. hey, there. whatfs up? look at you! yo

55、u look great. have a nice day, huh? how you doing, young lady? sentences like these are the normal ways when black people greet with each other. the culture of black people just where does this concept of "cool” come from? many consider its origins to lie in the very distinct african-american c

56、ulture. african people were brought to america to become slaves.these people were strong in mind in that they did not allow themselves to be enslaved in spirit, even though their hands and feet were shackled. from this, the concept of cool arose.it became essential to survival itself for these early

57、 african americans to remain outwardly calm while watching their sons, brothers and fathers tortured, humiliated or lynched for protecting themselves or for rebelling they knew that if they reacted, punishment would be swift and brutal. the captives had to condition themselves to remain impassive an

58、d to mask their emotions. the current sense of the word "cool” developed from a black english usage meaning excellent/1 it was first recorded in written english in the early 1930s. jazz musicians who used the term are responsible for its popularization during the 1940s. the concept of cool grad

59、ually penetrated into american culture because the white americans gained respect for an emerging black culture which had created an art form white america could neither ignore nor duplicate. jazz was the music of the black people.with more and more younger americans liking this kind of music, and later other forms such as hip-hop, they began to regard cool as the ultimate achievement. they became enslaved by its attractive force; every kid wanted to be cool.and what had captivated the american teenager then took corporate america with it. compa