Thirteen Stripes and Fifty Stars: AAVE Pronunciation

In this post, we are going to deal with the Pronunciation features of the AAVE. As I said in the previous post, AAVE has some features that differ from the Standard American English. We have seen the vocabulary so, now is time for the Pronunciation.

First of all, we are going to divide up the Pronunciation into two parts: In the first part, we will see the pronunciation features in consonants and in the second one, the pronunciation features in vocals.

Consonants:

Let’s start with `` Final consonants cluster ´´ . This term refers to a group of consonants that appear together in a syllable without any vowel between them . So when this occurs in a Word as in `` TEST´´ the final consonant ``T´´ is reduced. This means that it is no pronunciated. This rule occurs in every variety of English, including Standar one. In the AAVE, the reduction of the final consonant occurs variably, that is, it does not happen every time.

- The `` th´´ sounds can be represented as two different sounds in English: An `` unvoiced´´ one as in thin, think, through and a `` voiced´´ one as in that, they, and the. In the case of the AAVE, the pronunciation of this sound depends on where it is found in a word.

At the beginning of a word, the voiced sound (e.g. in that) is regularly pronounced as ``d´´ so 'the', 'they' and 'that' are pronounced as de, dey and dat..

At the end of a word, th is often pronounced f. For instance 'Ruth' is pronounced / Ruf/; 'south' is pronounced /souf/.

The sounds l and r:

When they do not occur at the beginning of a word l and r often undergo a process known as "vocalization" and are pronounced as uh. This is most apparent in a post-vocalic position (after a vowel). For instance 'steal', 'sister', 'nickel' become steauh, sistuh, nickuh. In some varieties of AAVE (e.g. in the Southern US), r is not pronounced after the vowels o and u. The words door and doe, four and foe, and sure and show can be pronounced alike.

Vocals:

Nasalized vowels:

When a nasal consonant as n or m follows a vowel, AAVE speakers delete the nasal consonant and nasalizes the vowel. This fenom is written with a mark `` ~ ´´ above the vowel.

Diphthongs:

We call diphtongs to the pronunciation of two vowels in a same syllable. When we are talking about the AAVE pronunciation, we can find cases in which the dipthong ``ai´´ as in night or my, can suffer a change in its pronunciation. So `` my´´ is pronounced as ``ma´´ a single sound.