I don’t know or hang around with many black people, but I do hear all of the stuff pointed out here on the regular any time I see a group of rednecks at the local farm supply.
Plus, internet meme culture has vastly changed the language landscape where, for example, phrases like “you don’t think it be like it is, but it do” are used by people from all walks of life.
A lot of AAE features are actually shared with Dixie English as spoken by non-black people. So I’m not surprised that you hear “rednecks” using a few of them.
The association between those features and African-American speakers is still there, though. If you see someone on the internet saying stuff like “I be working”, the typical person won’t picture a redneck, they’re going to picture a black person, you know?
The internet does seem to have changed the language landscape a fair bit, but I think that those features slowly leaking into the speech of non-AAE speakers is more about social changes than just tech.
I don’t know or hang around with many black people, but I do hear all of the stuff pointed out here on the regular any time I see a group of rednecks at the local farm supply.
Plus, internet meme culture has vastly changed the language landscape where, for example, phrases like “you don’t think it be like it is, but it do” are used by people from all walks of life.
A lot of AAE features are actually shared with Dixie English as spoken by non-black people. So I’m not surprised that you hear “rednecks” using a few of them.
The association between those features and African-American speakers is still there, though. If you see someone on the internet saying stuff like “I be working”, the typical person won’t picture a redneck, they’re going to picture a black person, you know?
The internet does seem to have changed the language landscape a fair bit, but I think that those features slowly leaking into the speech of non-AAE speakers is more about social changes than just tech.