Lexical Africanisms in American (Black) English: An empirical study. Das Vorkommen lexikalischer Afrikanismen im amerikanischen (Black) Englisch. Eine empirische Untersuchung;
75 informants from Los Angeles were investigated in this lexical study.
They were devided in four sociolinguistic categories(race, age, sex, social class). The questionnaire consisted of 21 lexical items, of which 14 were classified as 'direct' and 7 as 'indirect. The linguistic fieldwork was conducted according to the sociolinguistic criterion of speech elicitation and was done by a (black) 'go-between'.
No difference in the usage of lexical Africanisms between black and white could be found in this study. The variables sex and social class do not show statistical significance. The only variable that does show significance is age. The best results are achieved by age-group 3 (45 and over). The combination of variables emphasizes the statistical significance in the interaction of race/age and age/sex.
Only for two lexical elements do blacks show a higher frequency ('cooter', 'badmouth') whereas for other items ('jigger', 'juke') more whites could define the word. The results of this study do not favor a specific African vocabulary. Diachronically the decreolization theory can not be rejected on a general linguistic basis, synchronically there is no evidence of a 'large African impact on Black English or general American English' on a lexical linguistic basis.
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