2. Literature Review

2.1 Ethnic Varieties of English

In the United States, there are several ethnic dialects (dialects that are spoken by ethnic minorities) such as Black English, Chicano English, Asian-American dialects, Polynesian dialects, etc. The most important of these varieties are African American Vernacular English (AAVE) or Black American English, spoken by large parts of the black population, and Chicano English, spoken by people of Mexican descent (Tottie, 2008: 207). Foreign ethnic groups were accustomed to live together in a certain area when they immigrated to the United States. For instance, immigrants who came from Germany usually lived together in Pennsylvania and those from Cuba preferred to settle in Florida. Moreover, immigrants from different races usually had their own traditional profession. Therefore, ethnic varieties of English are not language variants only formed by national differences; they are closely linked with many factors such as areas, profession, etc.  

2.2 The Term of AAVE

In the United States, most of African Americans speak a characteristic variety of English that has been referred to by many different names. The first researchers, who took an interest in this variety (among them Labov) called it Non-Standard Negro English. However, because of the growing objections to the term negro, other labels had to be found for the linguistic variety, parallel to the changes in referring to black people. Thus the language variety spoken by African Americans has been variously called Black English, Vernacular Black English, Black Vernacular English, African American Vernacular English, African American English, and Ebonics. The term vernacular refers to the everyday language spoken by a people or a speech community, often a non-standard variety. Black English seems to be an acceptable term to most black speakers, but African American Vernacular English, abbreviated AAVE, is the term most current among linguists today (Tottie, 2008: 218).