Jim's language and the issue of race in Huckleberry Finn

Abstract

While many critics have considered how Jim is represented in Huckleberry Finn, few have approached the question of how he is characterized via an examination of his speech. This article looks specifically at phonological and grammatical features of Jim's speech to determine whether or not they correspond substantially to features of African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) documented by leading scholars. Using the LinguaLinks software program, it was possible to analyze Jim's speech in its entirety to the point where conclusions about characterization based on his language can conscientiously be made. The idea has been to look for occurrences of AAVE features in order to determine at least anecdotally whether Twain represents Jim's speech authentically, that is, in a way that indicates a real rather than stereotypical awareness of as well as sensitivity to real AAVE. Along with the analysis, the article continues with a discussion of attitudes towards social and regional variation of American English (AAVE in particular), the complexity of the work itself, and the critical and popular responses to it.