Language and Literature: International Journal of Stylistics

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.

Mark Twain is one of the most prolific writers of literary dialect, and his works have long been studied not only for their content but also for the structure of the language found within. In this tradition, this article analyzes the speech of the character of Huck Finn in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. However, this article moves beyond traditional studies which focus on cataloguing dialect features or discussing the writer's dialect accuracy, and instead questions whether or not Twain was consistent in his use of literary dialect intertextually. Using the LinguaLinks program, a representative sample of Huck's speech from each text was examined for non-standard features and dialect spellings, and these forms were analyzed for consistency of use. This study reveals that while Twain is consistent in some of the dialect features analyzed, variation does in fact occur within his representation of Huck's speech.

This article examines a-prefixing as it occurs in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and compares it to the a-prefixing data collected by dialectologists and sociolinguists, particularly those presented by Wolfram in his work on nonstandard dialects of American English. Although the two sets of data prove to be similar in most respects, there is a difference in how a-prefixes pattern in coordinate constructions. In this article, I illustrate how this difference could occur as the result of the process of grammaticalization.

This article explores Stowe's use of dialect in her controversial novel. Though some critics have mentioned the 'colorful language' of Stowe's characters, most debates about Uncle Tom's Cabin have not centered on the dialect representation in the speech of her characters. This article provides an objective analysis of Stowe's use of literary dialect in the speech of three characters (Aunt Chloe, George and Mr Haley) using the methods of quantitative linguistics. The frequency of occurrence of linguistic features and the distribution of non-standard features among Stowe's characters demonstrates that Stowe was, in several respects, remarkably accurate, both linguistically and historically. Stowe's characters' dialects illustrate an interesting period in the history of American dialect formation. Recent studies in African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) and the investigation of its origins have suggested a close relationship between AAVE and Southern White Vernacular English (SWVE) as a result of the sociohistorical context in which AAVE began. This relationship is reflected in the similarities between the speech of Aunt Chloe and Mr Haley and shows Stowe's portrayal of these dialects to be historically accurate. Stowe's linguistic accuracy is evidenced by the fact that each character's use of linguistic features mirrors that of actual speakers, in terms of specific dialect features and their frequency of use, and her distribution of features across social variables matches that found in sociolinguistic research.

In this article I wish to focus on Zora Neale Hurston's dialectal writing, specifically looking at what particular features characterize the language portrayed in Their Eyes Were Watching God via phonetic respellings; and whether or not these features are incorporated into the language of the text in an authentic and consistent manner. Thus I consider whether or not the respellings convincingly capture features of southern American English and AAVE, or if they simply represent stylistic devices employed by Hurston to mark the speech of her characters in a purely fictional manner. With respect to the text under consideration here, I will argue that the majority of Hurston's respellings do, in fact, indicate important phonetic and phonological differences in pronunciation that reflect features typical of both southern American English and AAVE. Furthermore, her use of 'nonstandard' grammatical constructions reinforces the linguistic authenticity of her representation of a dialectal variety particular to African-Americans living in the Southern United States.