Irving and I sit across from each other at a vintage `60's Formica table, my trusty Panasonic RN-111 micro-cassette recorder in hand. He is a black male in his mid 20's who grew up in a region of Atlanta called the "SWAts" (South West Atlanta), for the most part, except for the five years that he spent in a little Georgia town called Hogansville with his grandmother. After high-school, he joined the Army and then went on to college. This is where we are now. Irving and I are both in the same AAVE class, and we discussed some of the topics that have been brought up in that class over a banana and a bowl of cereal.

After Irving explained his background to me, which situations in his life he felt had the strongest influence on his idiolect. He had learned his speech style, in part, from his parents (who are both college graduates) from his teachers and from television. The biggest influence, however, was his grandmother. "She was a huge influence, (II.2)" he replied. He went on to say that both she and his grandfather were schoolteachers. This had an enormous impact on the way that he spoke because he was always being corrected by his grandmother for using improper grammar. Although at the time she was retired, Irving's grandmother had been a kindergarten teacher -- so she was accustomed to teaching children Irving's age how to speak. I asked if the types of things that she corrected were AAVE-isms or normal, everyday kid-learning-how-to-speak-isms. "She didn't care what wordage' I used." He went on to say that his grandmother used AAVE so she was not trying to dissuade him from speaking it. She wanted for him to know how to speak correctly so that he could code-shift when necessary. There was even code-shifting within his family. There were some situations where his family would use AAVE, and some situations where they would use SE, even among themselves. Everyone, he explained, knew what each language was and utilized it. "It's [SE's] a weapon that you use wherever you need to go if you're black. (II.3)"

After his grandmother taught him "correct" speech at such an early age, I was certain that when he returned to Atlanta there had to be a pretty significant difference in his speech vs. the urban kid's speech. He went on to explain the term "proper" to me. According to Irving, "proper" is the term that most African-Americans use to describe a fellow African-American who speaks Standard English, or they at least speak a more standard dialect than the accuser. This is how people described Irving in his childhood. "I did use to get in trouble for speaking proper,' (I.2)" he admitted. Irving was quick to point out that he didn't feel that he was not a speaker of AAVE, but rather that the people he surrounded himself with spoke it more heavily than he did. This lead way to Irving's spectrum theory (I.2).

The spectrum theory is that everyone's pattern of speech falls somewhere on a continuum. There is no true speaker of AAVE nor a true speaker of Standard English. To illustrate further, let's put the clear speakers of Standard English on the left of this spectrum, and the clear speakers of AAVE on the right. It would depend on if someone fell to the right or left of your own position on that scale whether you considered them an AAVE or an SE speaker. Also, their distance from your position would indicate how severe you considered their dialect. Irving wasn't sure where he fit on this scale, but from my observation he would be in the SE half, at the very least. Keep in mind that this scale assumes that someone speaks the same way to everybody and ignores code-shifting, which he feels applies to him "all day long."

On the subject of code-shifting, I asked Irving which situations he would apply to SE and in which situations AAVE would be more preferable. He was quick to point out that SE, the Language of Wider Communication, is the only language that is acceptable in a corporate environment (I.4). In other words, that language has a certain utility for him, and "otherwise [he] wouldn't care necessarily to speak Standard English." He would, however make sure that his children understand the mechanics of how to use SE because he feels that it is an integral part of functioning in a formal setting and this is how the language was presented to him by his grandmother.

When asked about the benefits of AAVE, I received two answers -- the descriptive nature of the language has more utility and secondly, one would receive more social acceptance. The latter ties in to the social theory of group acceptance. To quote directly, "social acceptance is probably the number one functional reason [for speaking AAVE] (I.4)." "Fitting in" seems to be a reoccurring motif, and I wondered if maybe this idea of group cohesion includes a degree of exclusion. Irving feels that exclusion definitely goes on, but that it is a byproduct of AAVE, rather than a goal. I asked how he viewed white people that used AAVE and he expressed a little dissention about the matter.

Originally, Irving could not accept a white person using an African-American dialect. Eventually, however, he realized that some whites have grown up in the same environment that he did, and that it is just as true a language to them as it is to him. As long as it isn't someone trying to come into something that they don't understand. Irving views this as patronizing. He then drew a puzzling analogy to the time he spent in Germany (I.5). He did not speak German before he got there, but as he learned more of the language he decided to throw himself into it and use the language around native Germans. He claimed to feel totally out of place, originally, but that it helped him to understand what the Germans were all about. I wondered why this couldn't apply to AAVE also, and why whites would not be allowed to engage in a similar practice to try and understand black culture. It became clearer to me when Irving added that it was all about respect. German has an established language and culture, and that was respected by most people. Black Americans are people without a culture, or rather, they are people who have been robbed of their culture. Because of this, African-Americans are trying to create their own culture -- something that they can identify with -- and the continuation of AAVE is a large part of this. Irving doesn't think that AAVE, at this point, could be approached in a respectful manner by someone who isn't black.

The picture that he has painted for me is that language is a very tender matter for African-Americans. He relates that in the Army, which is disproportionately black, you would never use AAVE when talking to your superior (I.10). I asked, "if the majority of people in the army are black speakers of AAVE, then is this a case of the minority trying to control the majority?" "Yes, totally," he replied. He explains that the best way to subjugate people is to take away their language. Without language you don't have identity, you belong to no group, and you are thereby easier to control. I added that maybe African-Americans were trying to resist this control by holding on to this language. He explained that "it's like trying to make a linguistic culture... out of nothing." Irving then digresses slightly in saying that he thinks that it won't last, that the language is in a constant state of decreolization and will eventually phase out. I mistakenly added that because of the number of blacks and white were about the same, that the two languages would eventually fall together. This opened up a new topic over a common misconception about the black population (I.12).

Irving insists that out of 300 million people in this country, 10% are black, 7% are Hispanic, 4% are Asian and the rest are miscellaneous. He admits that even to him the numbers of blacks seem much higher, but they really only make up a relatively small percentage. It has to be the case in so many places, he goes on to say, that there are white people who have never seen a black person before. I related that in many places this was the case, especially among the affluent. When the children of these families meet a black person for the first time, they are very uncomfortable -- simply because it is unfamiliar. This doesn't make them racist, necessarily, it just means that they will be uncomfortable until they get some exposure. "That's all it is, man, totally," Irving replied, "...exposure." I then inquired, "would you say that the key to racial harmony is..."

"Exposure. Yep," he concluded (I.13).

Returning to my previous hypothesis about exclusionary practices, I asked if exposure is the key to people understanding each other and getting along, then was AAVE a vehicle by which exclusion and separation continues to occur. His reply, which concluded our interview, was as follows:

"I think probably no, because the exclusion is really from the other side of it because the Asian community, Hispanic, AAVE -- what have you -- all have a clear understanding of what SE is but the SE environment doesn't have a clear and total understanding of all of these other environments, so therefore it's sort of like, well, we're not being invited in the door so we're gonna create our own little tiny door and it is a ... progressional type thing ... building on AAVE, but at the same time it does exclude, but I feel like the people who are speaking AAVE... are not accepted socially or linguistically so therefore we have to create our own thing and then from that microcosm and the SE microcosm, that's where the problems come from. (I.14)"

I believe that this idea illustrates the rift that exists between black culture and white America. Each side believes that the other is excluding it. From a linguistic standpoint, whites are excluded -- for the most part -- from AAVE. This is good for African-Americans because it creates a culture for them with which they can identify. African-Americans also want for their culture to be accepted by mainstream society, but unfortunately, whites don't usually get a chance to immerse themselves in that culture to study it in the same way that Irving studied the German culture. Without first-hand exposure, whites, to some degree, are going to be uncomfortable around this culture and be less willing to accept it. There is a continual push-pull among African-Americans who want to belong to both the smaller group and at the same time be accepted in the larger. This idea not exclusively a group goal, but is even expressed on the individual level as shown in this interview. The language that the individual associates him or herself with seems to play a key role as to which group the individual wishes to belong. Speakers of SE identify with mainstream America, speakers of AAVE with the black culture created in opposition of the mainstream culture. Bi-dialectal people, like Irving, identify with the black culture almost exclusively, but seem to use SE as a tool or "weapon" within the mainstream society. Irving doesn't seem to accept standard English as anything other than a necessity. He doesn't believe that SE is an integral part of himself, but rather an extension of his ability to communicate with others. Standard English really is a weapon to Irving, and a weapon that he wields proficiently.

View the transcript of this interview.