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John Russell Rickford & Russell John Rickford, Spoken soul: The story of Black English. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2000, xii + 267 pp. Hb. $24.95.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 January 2002

Salikoko S. Mufwene
Salikoko S. Mufwene
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, s-mufwene@uchicago.edu
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Abstract

Spoken Soul is a very stimulating book to read, informative and solidly grounded in scholarship from several disciplines, including quantitative sociolinguistics, sociology, socioeconomic history, and African American literature. It exemplifies the contribution that linguistic research on African American English (AAE) can make to African American studies. It is also a model for how scholarly findings can be shared with the lay public in a language that is vivid and accessible. Those who are familiar with AAE will appreciate the fact that this vividness is borrowed from the subject matter itself. Thus, the authors demonstrate implicitly that AAE is not an impoverished vernacular, and even scholarly discourse can benefit from it.

Type
REVIEWS
Information
Language in Society , Volume 30 , Issue 3 , July 2001 , pp. 479 - 487
Copyright
© 2001 Cambridge University Press

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