Foreword by William LabovPrefaceAcknowledgmentsPart 1. Orientation 1. Some Common Misconceptions about African American Vernacular English2. Language and Race: Some Implications of Bias for Linguistic SciencePart 2. The Relevance of African American Vernacular English to Education and Social Policies 3. Why What Works Has Not Worked for Nontraditional Students4. Reading, Writing, and Rap: Lyric Shuffle and Other Motivational Strategies to Introduce and Reinforce Literacy5. Educational Malpractice and the Ebonics Controversy6. Linguistic Discrimination and American justicePart 3. Cross-cultural Communication in Social Context 7. The Politics of Black Power Handshakes8. Changing Terms of Self-reference among American Slave DescendantsPart 4. Linguistic Dimensions of African American Vernacular English 9. Steady: Progressive Aspect in African American Vernacular English10. Come Again: Discourse Functions in African American Vernacular English11. Hypocorrection: Mistakes in the Production of African American Vernacular English as a Second Dialect12. Linguistic Perceptions in Black and White: Racial Identification Based on SpeechPart 5. Conclusion 13. Research Trends for African American Vernacular English: Anthropology, Education, and LinguisticsNotesGlossaryReferencesIndex

"If this book is anywhere near as successful as Baugh's Black Street Speech (which is probably the most widely used text on African American Vernacular English), it will not only be a contribution to the field of sociolinguistics, but a popular success as well."

"If this book is anywhere near as successful as Baugh's Black Street Speech (which is probably the most widely used text on African American Vernacular English), it will not only be a contribution to the field of sociolinguistics, but a popular success as well." -- Guy Bailey, coeditor of The Emergence of Black English: Text and Commentary