A Linguistic Analysis Of African American Vernacular English

In many public places, culturally different groups speak differently in the way that they are communicating. In many cases , the cultural differences are typically noticeable in white and black people. There is a difference in not only the language, but how they are treated by cashiers in popular coffee houses such as, “Starbucks”. The purpose of this essay is to conduct a linguistics analysis in regards to examining the bias black customers face who speak African American Vernacular English (also known as Ebonics) compared to white customers who speak Standard American English. Ebonics is American black English regarded as a language in its own right rather than as a dialect of standard English, it simply means 'black speech' and is spoken

I noticed that the level of excitement changed when dealing with hispanics from cashier 1 who seemed agitated while assisting that customer who you could tell English was not their first language. It appeared as though cashier 1 was offended and prefered to not deal with someone who spoke little to no English. When white customers came into the store, Cashier 1 had a burst of energy and greeted them with the utmost respect, even when the orders were long and the customer would add or remove items, cashier 1 kept her composure and continued to ring up the order posing a smile on her face and not showing any signs of uncomfort or annoyance even though the customer was very indecisive. When the first black customer came in during the hour that I was there the analyze the cashier(s) behavior, cashier 1 greeted him smiling as if she did not really want to smile nor engage in conversation, however was really well at disguising it because the order was just one item being a mocha frappuccino. I realized that when a black customer would come in the store and the order was too much or the customer would switch it, cashier 1 looked very uncomfortable and in fact took longer than average, even longer that when she was dealing with the first white customer that continued to remove and items from their order. It was like cashier 1 did not want to be bothered and felt entitled to not have to deal with the black customer because it was above her to serve a black person. In an article titled, “ Food Shopping Behaviors and Exposure to Discrimination”, by Shannon N. Zenk, she talks about discrimination people face while shopping. “ Food shopping behaviors can expose individuals, particularly racial/ethnic minorities, to discrimination. Stores – food and non-food -- are a common setting where racial/ethnic minorities in multiple countries