Middle Class Blacks' Perceptions of Dialect and Style Shifting: The Case of Southern Attorneys

Abstract

Both research and practical experience indicate that black dialect impedes mobility into mainstream American economic and political life. Blacks may learn to use Standard English as an entre into mainstream American culture and yet still preserve their cultural identities. It is possible that successful blacks retain their cultural identities because they perceive themselves as shifting, when appropriate, into a formal style that still lies within the bounds of Black English, or they may disassociate Standard English from cultural identification with white America. The authors employed in-depth interviewing of a highly selected sample for the purpose of exploring the attitudinal posture black professionals took toward Black English, Standard English and cultural identity. It was concluded that these speakers were able to acquire proficiency in Standard English while maintaining their minority cultural identities by disassociating Standard English from any ethnic identification and by assigning positive value to Black English as a form of linguistic behaviour.