Black English in the Integrated Workplace

Abstract

The existence of what has been designated separate one Black, one White (Kerner Commission, 1968)raises the question of the extent to which these two societies have also developed as distinct speech communities. Because race continues to be a critical variable in social and economic relations, as well as in public policy formation, the nature of sociolinguistic differences and cooperation between the African American and White American speech communities has implications for the whole of the communications discipline. This article is concerned with the impact of the industrial work setting on the cross-cultural communication aspects of African American -White American communication. The thesis is that the production demands of industrialized work settings have generated a lingua franca that has Black English at its base. If this hypothesis proves to be true, it carries with it significant implications for communication and language professionals as well as social policy planners.

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