Answer

Reading Response 2

Q1.      There are various differences between African American English (AAE) and Standard English. AAE tends to follow a set of complex grammatical rules that are different from Standard English (Kaplan, 2016). For instance, most verbs in AAE differ from those in Standard English. In fact, there are some parts of the AAE verb system that are arguably more complex than Standard English (Kaplan, 2016). As a result, one word in Standard English could mean something totally different in AAE. It is in this regard that the AAE and non-AAE speakers had a different answer to the question in Kaplan’s story in relation to Green and Roeper’s results (Kaplan, 2016). In other words, the speakers may have interpreted the questions differently based on the verbs used or the grammatical rules of their dialect/ language.

Q2.      There are a number of AA (V) E features that are not found in Standard English but are present in other languages across the world. For example, the term “she BIN married” can be interpreted to mean that one has been married for a long time in AA (V) E (Pullum, 1999). However, the same sentence in Standard English means that the person in question was married at some point in their lifetime (Pullum, 1999). In this case, Standard English lacks the stressed BIN grammatical marker. Similarly, another common feature of AA (V) E that lacks in Standard English is the aspectual be. This feature is often used to indicate regular or habitual actions in AA (V) E (Pullum, 1999).  For instance, the sentence Bruce be running means that he has been doing the action continually or on a regular basis. AA (V) E can, therefore, be said to have a grammatical distinction that is absent in Standard English.