What does “Non Standard
English” mean?
According
to Wolfram Et Schilling-Estes,
Vernacular or nonstandard varieties are those
”varieties of a language that are not classified
as standard dialects’ ” (305).
What is standard English?

According to Wolfram Et Schilling-Estes,
“the standard is the language variety
‘associated with middle-class, educated,
native speakers of the region’ ” (305).
What is a dialect?
According to Wolfram Et Schiling-Estes, “A
dialect is a ‘variety of the language associated
with a particular regional or social group,
everyone speaks a dialect” (305).
 Dialects vary in structure (sound, vocabulary,
grammar, and social conventions for structuring
conversations) on the basis of the speakers’
“age, socioeconomic status, gender, ethnic
group membership, and geographic region”
(305).

What is AAVE?
It’s an acronym for African American
Vernacular English.
 Vernacular or nonstandard varieties are
those “varieties of a language that are not
classified as standard dialects” (305).
 They contain socially stigmatized features
such as the so called English double
negative “I ain’t got none” or irregular
verb forms “I seen it” (305).

What is Code-Switching?

To codeswitch is to choose the pattern of
language appriate to the context chosen
by any given-individual to fit the
appropriate time, place, audience, and
communicative purpose,” i.e. way one
speaks at home, office, hospital,
marketplace.
Linguistics News
From the N.F.H.A (Nation Fair Housing
Alliance) Press Release:
 N.F.H.A. conducted tests over the
telephone to determine what both African
American and White home seekers were
told about unit availability, rent, discounts
and other terms and conditions of
apartment leasing (293).

In 66 percent of these tests – 43 of 65
instances- White callers were favored over
African-American callers.
 African-American callers did not provide
ethnic or racial information during phone
calls.
 The N.F.H.A. tests show a correlation
between the dialect of African-Americans
and discrimination on the part of the real
estate industry.

AAVE Facts
AAVE is a dialect that is spoken by AfricanAmerican across the US
 A.A.V.E follows a highly structured
grammar system.
 It not lazy English, according to Linguist
John Rickford.
 Speakers of AAVE often codeswitch and
are considered bilingual.

In the classroom
An important quote for all teachers to
remember:
 “It can be very damaging human experience for
an AAVE-speaking child to learn mainstream
American English while the teacher dismisses
AAVE as broken or error-filled” (Wolfram, 1999,
p.78). “Codeswitching: Tools of Language and
culture Transform the Dialectally Diverse
Classroom” Swords, Rachel.

What can be done?
Help students move between the two language
systems by teaching students to codeswitch. In
this way, you are empowering your students and
showing them how to use the tools they already
possess.
 As an educator, holding up Standard English as
the right language and AAVE as the “inferior” or
“wrong” can negatively impact students.
 Teaching AAVE students the grammar, structure,
and history of AAVE can evoke pride in their
language, which can cause increase in school
performance.
