摘要：在美国，黑人英语的历史是复杂的，即使在今天，也只有部分被理解。本文综述了由于美国黑人经历的社会历史而导致的黑人英语的产生和发展变化。
关键词：黑人英语；社会历史；变化
One of the most intensively studied varieties of English during the past decades has been the speech of American blacks in the South and in northern cities. This variety，which has been called variously non-standard Negro English，Black English Vernacular，and simply Black English，diverges in its very name from a geographical classification of dialects. There are two major misconceptions about American Black English. The first is that Black English is entirely unique among the dialects of American English. The second is that there are two major dialects of American English，which spoken by whites and that used by Blacks. Neither of these views is accepted by scholars，but both have wide general acceptance. But the question is thus raised，what exactly is "Black English"?
1 What Is Black English Black English is a social dialect characteristic of American blacks，often cutting across regional differences. When a group within a society undergoes some form of social isolation，then social dialect differences become more marked. Markers in this case include the discrimination and segregation experienced historically by American blacks. tory is surrounded by controversy and polemic. The story of their language-the nerve-end politics-is no exception. No other form of speech in the history of the English language has been so debated and defended.
2 The Early Period of Black English The development of Black English started in the seventeenth century，when European slave-traders began to ship black people from West Africa to the Caribbean Islands and the American coast and sell them as slaves. The slave trade continued for nearly 400years，and during those years，millions of African slaves were brought to America. The first English the slaves have heard，which has become the basis of Black English to this day，would have been from the sailors of the slave ships，many of whom started their journey from the old English trading ports like Liverpool and Bristol. British ships laden with cheap cotton goods，trinkets and Bibles sailed from Bristol and Liverpool for the west coast of Africa. They exchanged their cargo for a shipload of Black slaves who were the transported on the notorious Middle Passage to the sugar-bowl of the Caribbean. There the slaves were sold to plantation owners and set to work as house servants or in the fields. Before the British parliament finally abolished the slave trade in 1807，every leg of the journey contributed to the making of a completely new kind of English.
From the very period-1620 to almost 1700-little indirect and no direct evidence survives of the language spoken by African slaves. But by 1715，there clearly was an African Pidgin English known on a worldwide scale. Daniel Defoe utilized it in the mouth of Man Friday in Robinson Crusoe and in The Life of Colonel Jacque，in conversation like "Yes，yes…me know，me know but me want speak，me tell something. O! me let him make de great master angry."
By the end of the eighteenth century slaves from Massachusetts to South Carolina used at least three varieties of English: African Pidgin English; Plantation Creole; Standard English. In the North， and away from the influence of the plantations，the Blacks were more rapidly assimilated linguistically than in the South. Gradually， the memory of their African languages faded. Over the course oftime，the Pidgin and the Plantation Creole started to decreolize (change in the direction of Standard English).
3 The General Awareness of Black English During The Civil War Period By one way or another，words and phrases from various West African languages passed into American speech. There are also the words and phrases that emerged from nearly 250 years’ experience of slavery itself.
The slaves themselves were called Negroes，of Blacks，or euphemistically servants. Just before the war，abolitionist agitation made the so-called "Negro dialect" known to almost every serious reader in the United States. Books like Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowes，a crusading abolitionist，indicate the awareness of Black English and showed differences between the language of most slaves and that of the whites. More and more slaves were of course speaking Standard English at this point. There is also clear evidence that Plantation Creole decreolized more slowly in the plantation areas，where groups of slaves live largely autonomous lives affected the behavior patterns of their masters as much as they were affected. Even today it remains unclear exactly how much influence blacks had on the pronunciation of the southern whites. But certain whites picked up speech habits from their servants and graduallydeveloped distinctive，southern way of speaking. "Linguistically speaking，the effects of the Civil War and the liberation of the slaves on the spread of Black English were comparatively slight in the short run. Most Southern Blacks stayed on or near the plantations，and not until the industrialization of the North and the mass emigration to the cities in the early twentieth century did Black English enter a new phase." In the South，it continued to flourish and in the North the early records show that all the varieties of Black English were also spoken there.
4 The Regional Spread of Black English in The Post-Emancipation Period At the end of the American Civil War （1861-1865），four million slaves were freed，and an old English legal phrase，"civil rights"，entered the American lexicon. Slaves received civil rights for the first time and were now free to move from one place to another. In the early twentieth century，the Blacks of Southeast began to move towards the northern parts of the country especially to the Northeast. As blacks immigrated to new parts of the country，Black language and culture became known especially through music and dance. New，informal vocabulary was picked up by all Americans. In music，the Blacks have given them jazz，the blues and rock ’n’ roll; in dance，the cakewalk，the jitterbug，and break dancing. Blacks made a new cultural contact with mainstream Americans and this also led to a change in their own speech forms. In the southern plantations，social conditions did not change much. Thus plantation Creole was used for a long time after theEmancipation. In the years after World War Ⅱ，desegregation，Negro rioting， and the Black Power movement brought Black English，along with other Black cultural pattern，again to the attention of whites. Black children had by now entered previously all-white schools，and educators became interested in their language. Huge research projects made Black English one of the most studied dialects of all time.
Whites finally realized that this language had distinct rules 0f its own was not just a mass of randam ererrors committed by blacks trying to speak English.
5 Conclusion Black English is quite a distinct form of communication. It reflects a linguistic heritage from Africa and Europe as well as a history of slavery and separation in the United States. Having its own history of development，Black English is a fully formed linguistic system operating parallel to standard American English. Like other varieties of the language，Black English has its own set of gramatical prhetorical style，to give it a unique character. It has had considerable influence on the standard American English of today: many words and expressions that were originally Black English have been adapted to common use in other variants of English. Perhaps one day the United States will officially became a multidialectal nation. This would finally give a well-deserved recognition to Black English，so that it would no longer be described as a "Non-Standard" language.
作者：李祎
单位：大连海洋学校，辽宁 大连116000
编辑整理：花溪杂志社编辑部 网址：www.chizizzs.com
