Preview

African-American Vocular Analysis

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
635 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
African-American Vocular Analysis
When the term "vernacular" comes to mind, the immediate synonym associated with it, is "language". Furthermore, this language is comprised of dialect as well as slang. In regards to the African-American vernacular, there is more to it than strictly linguistics. For African-American literature, it is not merely about the words, but is instead about the moods and motives that drive them.
For starters, in the category of mood, African-American literature is rich. The voices of its authors are not only unique, but overflowing with emotion. Specifically, "what distinguishes this body of work is its in-group and, at times, secretive, defensive, and aggressive character" (3). This aggressive ambiance is especially evident in the forms of hip hop and songs of social change within the vernacular. Although not complaisant in their nature, any distress evident in those genres is equitably juxtaposed against the jovial disposition found in other forms of the vernacular. For instance, secular rhymes are characterized by their jocular tone and creation of "black laughter" (20). Additionally, in the spirituals category, there is also an exorbitant
…show more content…
It is comprehending the moods and motives that accompany the words within a spiritual or lyrics in a gospel. Analyzing the African-American vernacular is understanding that it is the secular work songs that helped slaves survive the brutal days on the plantation. It is the sermons and speeches delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and others, that made the lengthy and bus-less commute to work feel worth it. It is the angry, and sometimes vulgar, lyrics in the modern-day hip hop song that drives a crowd of a million millennials to post “#BlackLivesMatter” on social media. Defining the black vernacular, is precisely, understanding not only where African-Americans are coming from, but also where they are

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The term vernacular applies to the South because the people there believe it exists as part of their culture. The people of the South have customs that immerge from their sense of place and pride for their region. The South is not necessarily a defined region, but more of a region that a specific person perceives as the South. This is why the South is an example of a vernacular region.…

    • 418 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Analyzing three different African American writers, I have become aware of three viewpoints in which African American artists should express themselves. Each writer made there points clear in there respectable articles. Langston Hughes expresses his views in “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain,” W.E.B Dubois in ”Criteria Of Negro Art,” and Richard Wright in “Blueprint for Negro Writing”. After comparing the three writers, one can find many similarities in each writers messages for the African American writer, and see which writer had the strongest and most persuasive stand.…

    • 1039 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, the tone is mostly compassionate, sympathetic, and having tender feelings. The African American culture is very much focused on by the author. The author, Hurston, uses a plethora of conversations between friends and neighbors that use their cultural dialect. The book is more realistic, down-to-earth, and life-like because of the way Hurston wrote the book and it makes it more special.…

    • 1289 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    One of the major differences between the New Negro and the African American is the viewpoint on the culture. The aspects of the culture that is being focused on is the literary, and the fine arts. “In Harlem Renaissance literature,…

    • 1171 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    One of the most fascinating and unique novels in African American literature is Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, not so much for it’s story but for it’s beautifully written language. The novel is about the main character, Janie, trying to find herself and the meaning of love. Both Standard English and a southern black dialect, and poetry are seamlessly integrated into the story which reveals symbols and hidden meanings.…

    • 885 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Leslie Savan’s Essay

    • 810 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In Leslie Savan’s essay, “What’s Black, Then White, and Said All Over?,” Savan talks about the “hidden costs”(381) and benefits of the black language in America. When observing this economic and psychological boundary its clear that African American people went through lots of pain and suffering when creating trendy words and sayings. This is important to African Americans because most people do not understand that these words have now been adopted by white people “who reap the profits without paying [their] dues”(Savan 382).…

    • 810 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Harlem Renaissance was a period in which African Americans prospered with great achievements. The process of these achievements involved variety and the will to be experimental. Langston Hughes was inspired by the efforts of these people and took their success into consideration when developing his own work. Hughes portrayed his message through “poetry, plays, essays, novels short stories, newspaper columns, magazine articles, and song lyrics” (Ed 2). The variety of Hughes’ compositions, just like many…

    • 1151 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Best Essays

    Marie Laveau

    • 2004 Words
    • 9 Pages

    Holloway, Joeseph. Africanisms in American Culture. 2nd. Boomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2005. 131-137. Print.…

    • 2004 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Good Essays

    Each person has their different views on African American experience. Most expressed that through poems in the Harlem Renaissance time. Poets such as Arna Bontemps, Countee Cullen and Jean Toomer expressed emotions and they’re point of views in writing. In Jean Toomer’s poem he talks about African American experience speaking about embracing the ideal human race that isn’t concerned with color. Cullen referred poetry as a tool to break down racial barriers for African Americans, although he preferred to use classical form. Bontemps’s work of poetry focuses on the themes of dignity and justice and is influenced by oral traditions and music of African Americans.…

    • 344 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Blacks thought there was hope through art. The Harlem Renaissance was the most artistic period in African-American history. Since the abolition of slavery, great social and cultural transformations were taking place and the Harlem Renaissance reflects that change. Now that they had freedom to express themselves on their own terms, African-Americans began to explore their own culture and celebrate it through their artistic and intellectual means. Langston Hughes in “When the Negro was in vogue” and Rudolph Fisher in “The Caucasian storms Harlem” manage to rise well above mere written entertainment by offering practical social challenges. No reader is left without a public dilemma to personally ponder.…

    • 490 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “While gospel music is strongly entrenched in the African American "folk church" tradition, it also attracts many who identify as much with its expression of African American values, aesthetics, and life experiences as with its expression of religion” (Jackson). Gospel music has contributed many ways to the people outside of the church community. It helps draw in people who have no understanding of Jesus. Gospel music has a certain connection of drawing you close to lyrics and the story behind each word. Some have an upbeat to it which makes you want to dance to it. While as other forms of gospel music has a certain sultry to it which makes you cry and thank God for allowing from getting out of that certain situation. A lyric in any form of music is how you draw your audience to listen to your music. However, the beat and the sound that goes along with the lyrics is also a major key into music. “Artist today employed more frequents us of personal pronouns, testimony and emotional, romantic poetry in their music” (Doucette…

    • 961 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    “ Hughes shapes its substance to the cadences, accents, and ductile phrases familiar to most Negroes; and he weaves incident, personality, and racial history into recurrent patterns”(Hunter 176). One of the reasons why Langston Hughes had such great success was because he was equally sensitive to the dignity that African Americans endured as well as their endured or resisted oppression. His works aren’t always serious and raw, in some of his works he incorporates another talent that he has. “ With humor, one of his rare gifts, Hughes injects comfortable chuckles into much of his poetry and prose”(Emanuel…

    • 1829 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Harlem Renaissance Outline

    • 1215 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Langston Hughes believed that black artists should focus on the widespread and create individual “Negro” art. He famously wrote about the period that “the negro was in vogue”. Considered among the greatest poets in U.S. history, Hughes was one of the earliest innovators of jazz poetry, poetry that “demonstrates jazz-like rhythm”. His works often portrayed the lives of middle class African Americans. Hughes was a proponent of creating distinctive “Negro” art and not falling for the “urge within the race toward whiteness”…

    • 1215 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Negro Spirituals

    • 1132 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The lyrics of Negro spirituals were tightly linked with the lives of their authors: slaves. Spirituals were inspired by the message of Jesus Christ and his Good News (Gospel) of the Bible, "You can be saved". They are different from hymns and psalms, because they were a way of sharing the hard condition of being a slave. Many slaves in town and in…

    • 1132 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    "For the first time since the plantation days artists began to touch new material, to understand new tools and to accept eagerly the challenge of Black poetry, Black song and Black scholarship."1…

    • 1511 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays