MAKE IT PLAIN, PREACHA’: AFRICAN AMERICAN RHETORICAL LICENSE, AFRICAN AMERICAN VERNACULAR ENGLISH (AAVE), AND A MODERN RENDERING OF EPIDEICTIC RHETORIC by LESLIE E. SIMILLY Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Arlington in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT ARLINGTON MAY 2012 UMI Number: 3513603 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent on the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMI 3513603 Copyright 2012 by ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This edition of the work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, MI 48106 - 1346 Copyright © by LESLIE SIMILLY 2012 All Rights Reserved ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my dissertation committee members, Drs. Cedrick May, Jim Warren, and Tim Richardson. You all have been wonderfully helpful in helping me attain my goals. Thank you to Drs. Tim Morris and Kevin Gustafson for being such great advisors. Thanks to Drs. Peggy Kulesz and Margaret Lowry for being such great “bosses”. I appreciate you both immensely. I would also like to acknowledge Dr. Matt Hollrah for working with me so diligently at the University of Central Oklahoma during my Masters program. I would also like to thank my family: Mama, David, Angelique, Ryan, Lauren, Grandmother and Papa, and Auntie Elza for being so supportive throughput this process. I would like to thank everyone who directly and indirectly influenced, and encouraged me throughout this process. Lastly, but most importantly, I would like to thank God for sustaining me and blessing me so immensely. April 18, 2012 iii ABSTRACT ‘MAKE IT PLAIN, PREACHA’: AFRICAN AMERICAN RHETORICAL LICENSE, AFRICAN AMERICAN VERNACULAR ENGLISH (AAVE), AND A MODERN RENDERING OF EPIDIECTIC RHETORIC Leslie E. Similly, PhD The University of Texas at Arlington, 2012 Supervising Professor: Cedrick May In this project, I contend that African American rhetoric, namely African American sermonic rhetoric, constitutes a distinct, culturally specialized variety of rhetoric generated out of the distinctive circumstances of the African American Diasporic experience. I present the study of African American homiletics as a lens iv through which to view the intersections between culture and aural text. In order to examine the rhetorical tools peculiar to the African American religious tradition. I perform a solely rhetorical explication of many of the typical elements of Black Church sermons. To allow for this process, I have conducted archival research in order to generate transcribed Black Church sermons for the purpose of explicating the rhetorical and paralinguistic components therein. I also argue that the strategic use of AAVE within Black Church sermons serves a hermeneutical function. That is to say, the preacher’s choice to deploy AAVE within Black Church sermons not only fosters solidarity between Black speakers and Black congregation, but aids in “meaning-making” on the part of the congregation as well as the process of Biblical exegesis. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................ ……………..iii ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................... iv Chapter Page 1. INTRODUCTION……………………………………..………..….. ............. .1 1.1 Significance .............................................................................. .1 1.2 Summary Review of Relevant Scholarship ............................... .6 1.3 Methodology .......................................................................... .12 1.4 Organization .......................................................................... .15 2. BLACK CHURCH CULTURE .............................................................. 21 2.1 What Constitutes the Black Church? ...................................... 21 2.2 Brief History of the Black Church ............................................ 22 2.3 Emphasis on Communality within the Black Church ............... 26 2.4 Sermon Event as Crux of Black Church Experience ............. 30 2.5 Role of the Preacher in Black the Church ............................... 36 2.6 Notions of Ethos within the Black Church ............................... 37 3. AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION AND INTERACTION ............................ 44 3.1 Call-Response ......................................................................... 44 iii 3.2 Rhetorical Embellishments that Foster Engagement ............... 62 3.2.1 Fill in the Blank/Strategic Pause .............................. 62 3.2.2 Tell Your Neighbor ................................................... 64 3.2.3 Direct Solicitation of Audience Response ................ 69 3.2.4 Permission to Preach ............................................... 74 4. BLACK PREACHING AS EPIDEICTIC RHETORIC ............................ 77 4.1 What Constitutes Epideictic Rhetoric? ..................................... 78 4.2 Black Church Sermons as Exemplar of Classical notions of Eloquence ...................................................................................... 86 4.3 African American Sermonic Rhetoric as Rendering of All Five Canons .......................................................................................... 91 4.3.1 Invention ................................................................... 92 4.3.2 Arrangement/ Structure of Sermon ........................... 94 4.3.3 Memory as it Effects Ethos and Elements of Style ... 95 4.3.4 Style/ Delivery ........................................................... 96 4.4 Extemporaneity/ Kairos ...................................................... 101 4.5 Emphasis on Relatable Sermon ......................................... 108 4.6 Tropes within Black Preaching .......................................... 113 5. PERFORMATIVITY AND RHETORICAL LICENSE .......................... 119 5.1 Black Religious Paralinguistics and Performativity ............ 122 5.1.1 Rhythm/Cadence .............................................. 127 5.1.2 Tone/Pitch Variation ......................................... 131 iv 5.1.3 Gravelly Voice .......................................................... 132 5.1.4 Gesticulation ............................................................ 133 5.1.5 Sing-Song Style ....................................................... 138 5.1.6 Repetition and Refrain ............................................. 140 5.1.7 Self Interruption ........................................................ 146 5.1.8 Intentional Stammer/Stutter ..................................... 146 5.1.9 Non-Verbal Punctuation ........................................... 149 5.1.10 Circumlocution ....................................................... 150 5.1.11 Humor within the Sermon ....................................... 150 6. AAVE AS IT INFORMS BLACK CHURCH SERMONS ..................... 153 6.1 What Constitutes African American Vernacular English? .. 153 6.2 Possible Origins/ History of AAVE ..................................... 155 6.3 Stigmas Associated with AAVE .......................................... 157 6.4 Code-Switching .................................................................. 160 6.5 AAVE in the Black Church Sermon .................................... 163 6.6 Slang and Secular References within the Sermon ............. 168 7. CONCLUSION .................................................................................. 173 REFERENCES.................................................................................................. 177 BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION ..................................................................... 183 v CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1Significance Mainstream America’s exposure to the cultural mores and ethnically specific discursive modes practiced within the Black Church has largely been limited to sound bites and short, uncontextualized material delivered by the media. These cursory depictions often promote a distorted, erroneously typified conception of the conventions of the Black Church and the sermonic rhetoric disseminated therein. According to Ronald B. Neal, author of the article “R.I.P: The Myth of the Black Church” most Americans are largely unaware of the diverse Christian congregations and denominational structures that comprise what is called the Black Church. For many Americans, the oratory, quasi-liberal politics, and charismatic swagger of Barack Obama, Jeremiah Wright, Jesse L. Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Tavis Smiley are the primary windows into Christianity in [B]lack America. Beyond these living caricatures of [B]lack and Christian America, PBS specials, black and white footage of the Civil Rights era, and Martin Luther King Jr.’s, “I 1