摘  要

由于历史的原因,有很多的黑人生活在美国,他们所使用的语言也由于带有鲜明的民族特色而享有了一个独特的名字——黑人英语。然而,近几十年来对黑人英语的进一步研究表明,黑人英语这个名字实际是不确切的,因为它不是单纯由民族差异而形成的语言变体,它的使用是与经济地位、教育水准等社会因素密切有关的,由此可见,近年来美国的黑人英语已逐步成为了一种重要的社会方言,而不是单纯的民族方言。一方面并不是所有的美国黑人都使用黑人英语,黑人英语作为一种英语变体使用于美国社会中那些经济地位低下的黑人中,或者是那些虽然已上升到中等收入水平,但与原来的阶层仍保持联系的黑人中。而随着全世界范围内的信息的快速传递，黑人英语以其特有的简洁直率的表达感情越来越为青年人所喜爱。

关键词：黑人英语；美国黑人；社会方言；英语变体

Abstract

    The United States is a young nation, but now it has become the strongest nation. Its every stage of the history is worthy studying and reflecting. Due to historical reasons, there are a lot of black people living in the United States. The language which they used has some distinctive ethnic features and enjoys a unique name, called “AAVE”. However, further researches show that the name of AAVE is not accurate. Because the language variant is not simply formed by national differences. Its usage is closely related to the economic status, education level and so on. So in recent years, AAVE has gradually become an important social dialect, rather than a national dialect. On the one hand, not all Americans use AAVE. AAVE is a kind of English variant that used by the low economic blacks in American society, or the blacks have risen to middle income level, but still keep in touch with the original class in blacks. As the rapid transmission of information, AAVE is loved by more and more young people because of its peculiar concise and the direct way of expressing feelings.

Key words: AAVE ; African American ; social dialect ; English variant

1 Introduction
    This paper is to analyze the origins and features of African American Vernacular English (AAVE). In the history of African-American English, AAVE has been given different English names such as Negro Nonstandard English, Negro English, Colored variants. These name changes and address changes in African-American race has a certain relationship with the characteristics of AAVE change. Over the past two decades, with the legalization of the status of AAVE, African-American linguists, scholars and activists have been trying to find a more appropriate name. However, the names used mainly in the academic, scholars are still inclined to use AAVE. However, even in the use of AAVE among blacks, the situation is different.