CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
In this chapter, background of the study,
problem statements, objectives of the study, scope
and limitation of the study,
significance of the
study, and operational definition of the key terms are discussed.
1.1 Background of the Study According
to one of the theories in sociolinguistics which discusses about the variation
of language, every
society or speech
communities has their
own way of language
speaking. It happens because of the natureof language itself that has several characteristics, such as language is dynamic
and varied. The holy Qur’an mentioned in
Surah Ar-Ruum verse Means
and of His
signs is the
creation of the
heavens and the
earth, and the
difference of your languages
and colors. Lo! herein indeed are portents for men of knowledge .
This quranic
verses shows to us how
God creates human
with various languages.
Therefore, it gives the truthful
reason that strengthens the existence of the language characteristics above.
. Qur’an digital in word, Taufiq product, Inc,
GetAl-Qur’an in M-S Word ver 0.0.1 .
The Qur’an translation of Marmaduke Pickthall taken from
Pickthall/pickhtallquran.pdf, accessed on
March 5, 2008.
Language is the human’s treasure which has a
close relationship to all of the action
that have been
done by human.
There are no
activities that do
not use language
. This tight
connection between language
and human make
language changes and not static.
Language changes could be happened in all linguistics sectors including
the grammatical rules,
word choices, the
pronunciation of words
etc.
Consequently, language is
something dynamic.
On the other hand, language that
we use in everydayliving is always varied from one to another. No one speaks the same
way allthe time . This statement is true
by
the nature since
the language society
usually consist of
many kinds of
people which coming
from different social
status and different
cultural background. Thus, the
language used to speak is more varied. Concerning to this variation, there is
one term
we have to
know. It is
called “Dialect”. Dialect
means a kind
of language variation that used by certain groups of
society incertain places or time . In
American English, there
are many dialects
such as Yorkshire
dialect, New York
dialect etc.
However, there
is a unique
dialect namely “Black
English” or Afro-American English
which becomes
the object of
this study. It
is very fascinating
to discuss about
the language that
is spoken by
Afro-American because their
dialect is not merely
different but it is considered as a social dialects because the emergence of
the . The statement of Kridalaksana in
Abdul Chaer, Linguistik Umum (Jakarta, 2003), page. 33 . Ronald Wardaugh, An Introduction to
Sociolinguistics (UK, 1986), page. 5 .
Ronald Wardaugh, An Introduction to Sociolinguistics (UK, 1986), page. 46 6. Afro-American English is actually a group
of dialects which has similar name with African American vernacular English (AAVE), Ebonics
and Black English (BE) dialects is the
result of the historical discrimination that has created social isolation among them. Therefore, this dialect symbolizes
their ethnic identity. From this fact, it is clearly shows that language and the social
changes is a unity.
The language changing is closely
related to the context of the social changes
.
In contrast,
the social changes
has also implicated to
the language changes.
As a consequence, language is not only a utility to
express the human’s mind but also to create
and to decide the social reality because language and its change revealed about
the speakers condition. This is actually
becomes the main point of the occurrence of Afro-American English.
As we know, ethnic variation can
be seen especiallyin USA, most of AfroAmerican who lives in New York, Boston,
Chicago, Detroit and Seattle has similar way of speaking
. This is
because the result
of the Black’s
migration and it
also become a reflection of
long-standing segregation which now slowly change.
Afro-American English
has something unique
which is quite different
from the standard English that
become the issue of the research problem. For this reason, the
researcher starts his
language investigation which
focused on phonological characteristics of Afro-American’s oral
language. Afro-American English have such different
characteristics of phonology
. As an
example words like
thing and this maybe pronounced
as /ting/ and
/dis/, bath may sound
like /baff/, brother
may sound like /braver/. The
other example like test, deskand endpronounced without . Mudjia Rahardjo, Relung-relung Bahasa
(Malang, 2002), page. 49 . James
M.Mcperson., Blacks In America (Bibliographical Essays) (New York, 1972), page.
49 . Ronald Wardaugh, An Introduction
to Sociolinguistics (UK, 1986), page. 323 their
final consonants. The
word ”cold” may
show loss of
the final d,
so it pronounced /kowl/or even loss both ofl and d,
thenit said /kow/. The words ‘why’ pronounced/wa:/ and many more.
Considering to
the problems above,
the researcher wants
to strengthen the importance of
this research, which
discuss about one
of the variant
of American dialects. Perhaps all of us have known about
the uniqueness of Afro-American oral language
but still in partial understanding or not
in systematic way. By this research, the
researcher explores more
about phonological characteristics of
Afro-American oral language.
The researcher find
out how are
the processes that
make AfroAmerican has different
phonological characteristics. Therefore, it is expected that this study could become an additional knowledge to
the reader who wants to learn about phonological
characteristics of Afro-American English.
In addition, in order to get the
data of this research of course it is impossible for
the researcher to
meet and converse
directly to Afro-American. Thus,
the researcher analyzed
Afro-American popular movies
which contain a lot of
AfroAmerican English words
and utterances that
can be analyzed
deeply through the subject
of phonology.
Moreover, many
students in English
Letters and Language
Department of UIN
Malang have researched
the branches of linguistics. Especially,
in the area
of sociolinguistics,
psycholinguistics, discourse analysis, morphology, syntax, semantics etc
but the researcher
still found a
small amount of
researches about phonology particularly
in the study
of phonological characteristics of
certain language and
its study of speech sounds. There
are two researches about phonology which found by the researcher. First is the research of
Wahida Yunita Irani (2006) which has a title “phonological processes found in Bend it like
Beckham the movie”. This research is conducted
to find what kind of phonological processes that comes out in that movie.
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