ANAYFOR ANAH: LANGUAGE OF SURVIVAL IN AFRICAN AMERICAN NARRATIVE COMEDY

Abstract

In narratives prepared for primarily African American audiences, African American comedians highlight and exaggerate linguistic features that index traits they attribute to the African American community as well as to the white middle-class establishment. Most prominent among the segmental features that the comedians emphasize is the diphthongal variable /ai/. They produce a monophthongal [A] variant when constructing African American characters and a highly fronted [ai] when portraying the establishment middle class. Characters from both groups appear in situations where their attitudes and behavior highlight the traits attributed to them. African American characters are cast as humanly and culturally rich survivors whose common sense and resilience allow them to "make a way out of no way." In contrast, establishment characters appear as narrowly logical, ethnically bland, and ineffectual. The positive portrayal of African Americans is itself a tool of survival that stems from a self-empowering community ideology that serves as a buffer against the effects of perceived racism.

How to do things with slurs: Studies in the way of derogatory words

“…Du Bois Institute for African American Research at Harvard University, claims that he is not at all offended by the use of the slur in an in-group context among African Americans (Gates, 2009). One thirty-two-year-old male interviewee reported that, ''The hip-hop use of nigga represents a growing consciousness of African Americans as subjects rather than objects'' and that ''I'm my own person'' (quoted in Rahman, 2012, p. 159), with Rahman (2012) arguing that the in-group use highlights the in-group member's identity as ''African Americans [that] see themselves as resourceful, pragmatic survivors'' (p. 159, see also Rahman, 2004Rahman, , 2007. Rahman (2012) further suggests that, ''in a pragmatic instance of appropriation and reanalysis of racist meanings, young African Americans took ownership of the racist form of nigger, turning it to their own use as the nigga form'' (p. 159) and that ''That's my nigga'' [is understood as] Describing the type of close, supportive friendship where use of ''my nigga'' is appropriate' ' (p. 155).…”

The N Word

“…Since nigga is a lexical feature that African American comedians sometimes use conspicuously in their intraethnic performances, narratives from comedians seemed a practical and reliable source of data for this research. Audiences expect that from the outset of a performance, a comedian will work to establish a stage identity that conveys solidarity with the audience, along with a "comic authority" that derives from cultural knowledge and verbal acuity (Greenbaum 1999;Rahman 2004Rahman , 2007. Research shows that without these elements, an audience will not respond favorably to a comedian.…”

“…But the nature of the craft of stand-up is such that comedians have only short stretches of time in which to establish an audience relationship and convey their comedically incisive messages. Rahman (2007) observes that in performances that display a high level of metapragmatic awareness, astute comedians rely heavily on linguistic resources with social meanings that audiences immediately recognize and properly interpret. They establish solidarity, in part, by emphasizing linguistic features in contexts that evoke cultural memories, familiar images, and the perception of a shared ethnic experience for their audiences.…”

“…They establish solidarity, in part, by emphasizing linguistic features in contexts that evoke cultural memories, familiar images, and the perception of a shared ethnic experience for their audiences. Successful African American comedians almost universally employ a vernacular AAE (Rickford & Rickford 2000;Rahman 2004Rahman , 2007. Using recognizable ethnic terms of reference and address is part of a strategy meant to establish solidarity and authoritative credibility with audiences.…”

Identifying stylizations in ethnically salient talk among disc jockeys

“…Rahman's (2007) analysis of African-American narrative comedians (such as Richard Pryor), and Furukawa's (2007) analysis of Hawaiian stand-up comedy, although this is not the focus of any of these studies. As Chun shows, while Cho can claim ownership to the stylized Korean she uses in the stylizations in her comedic routines, 4 she clearly signals through reported-speech markers (such as quotatives and pitch changes) that she is speaking as her mother or as an Asian teen when she uses it.…”