Language in a Black Community

Legislation enacted during the 1960s reduced immigration from the West Indies to the United Kingdom to a trickle, and by the mid-1970s virtually all children entering school had been born in Britain. This is the first study which addresses itself specifically to the question of language use in the new generation of British Black speakers. Previous discussions of black language in Britain have tended to rely heavily on anecdotal accounts and self-reports. In contrast, Language in a Black Community is based on an actual corpus of data which draws on the speech of a wide range of young British Blacks in a wide range of situations. The social characteristics of the speakers, including educational background, attitudes towards mainstream white society and social networks, are related to different kinds of language behaviour and the findings seriously question many assumptions which over the years have become conventional wisdom.