Write an abstract of the Roy Neil Graves article, AUTHOR: ROY NEIL GRAVES
TITLE: Bambara’s THE LESSON

write a paragraph of 50 – 100 words in standard English. Use MLA format to write the bibliographic citation, and below it write the abstract paragraph. The paragraph should answer the following questions:

What is the author’s main argument in the article?
What two things did you learn from the reading that relate to your study of this unit?

AAVE language
African American Vernacular English (AAVE)—also known as Black Vernacular Speech, Black English, and Ebonics—is a dialect of American English along the lines of other dialects such as Southern-Midland (Appalachian) and New York-New Jersey English. This dialect is a prominent part of the Black Aesthetic and can be found in much African American literature.

The roots of AAVE are in the slave trade, as people of various African tribes were intermixed and forced to rely upon each other during their shared horrors (see Unit 1: The Middle Passage). These tribes did not necessarily speak a common language and thus developed pidgin languages by combing portions of each language to create one common language. At their final destination and subsequent purchase, these slaves had to adjust their language to accommodate that of their owners and new slaves they encountered. For those who worked on the English-speaking mainland, this resulted in a new dialect of English—a language that itself was transforming from the dialect spoken by the Colonial power (British English) to one spoken by the colonies (American English).

African American Vernacular English distinguishes itself as a dialect of English in the manner in which it lengthens or eliminates vowel sounds, drops final consonants, and expresses verb tenses. Furthermore, AAVE often uses double negatives and introduces the word “ain’t” into conversational usage as a replacement for “have not.”