Thomas 2007

Thomas, Erik R. 2007. Phonological and Phonetic Characteristics of African American Vernacular English. Language and Linguistics Compass 1/5 (2007): 450–475.

In his very thorough article, Thomas outlines a large number of phonological and phonetic variables in African American English (AAE) and suggests ways we might study these variables in the comparison and contrast to European American varieties, particularly Southern White Vernacular English (SWVE). Thomas argues that although a great deal of research on AAE has dealt with morphosyntactic variation, phonological and phonetic variables represent the richest information source for how AAE is changing.

Thomas examines a number of consonental variables:

• consnential lexical variations (sk, sp metathesis)
• Rlessness and l-vocalilzation
• Interdental Fricative realization
• Consonant Cluster Simplicificaion/ -t/-d deletion
• rarer features, such as /skr/ for /str/

and also vowel veatures

• lack of HAPPY tensing
• PIN-PEN merger
• AAE shift
• GOOSE-GOAT fronting

Most interestingly, Thomas also includes other phonological variables beyond the most commonly studied AAE variables, such as voice quality, tone (using the ToBI system), prosody, and timing. I thought this was one of the most instructive areas in which he extended his research. Ultimately, Thomas calls for approaches which look at AAE variables on all levels of phonetics and phonology, and suggests that such an approach would have broad application not only within sociolinguistics but within other realms such as applied and educational linguistics as well.