Your work colleague Charles is a big fan of the royal family, and he often talks about how RP is 'beautiful' and 'the best' form of English, in particular because of how words like 'dark' and 'car' are pronounced in this dialect.

One day after work, Charles hears you playing the John Legend song
'Who did that to you'.
Links to an external site.

As he listens to the song, Charles starts complaining about the version of AAVE (BAE) used by the singer. He says the pronunciation of words like 'Lord' and 'prepare for' are being 'butchered', because the r-sounds are not fully pronounced.

Basing your answer only on linguistic evidence, is his evaluation of the two dialects fair? Choose the answer that gives the best evidence that it is or isn't fair.

Question

Your work colleague Charles is a big fan of the royal family, and he often talks about how RP is 'beautiful' and  'the best' form of English, in particular because of how words like 'dark' and 'car' are pronounced in this dialect.

One day after work, Charles hears you playing the John Legend song
'Who did that to you'.
Links to an external site.

As he listens to the song, Charles starts complaining about the version of AAVE (BAE) used by the singer. He says the pronunciation of words like 'Lord' and 'prepare for' are being 'butchered', because the r-sounds are not fully pronounced.

Basing your answer only on linguistic evidence, is his evaluation of the two dialects fair? Choose the answer that gives the best evidence that it is or isn't fair.

BlackTom AI · Accepted Answer

Contextualizing the question first: you’re comparing two dialects—RP (a form of British English) and AAVE (African American Vernacular English, here referred to via the BA E variant)—based on how rhoticity (the pronunciation of the 'r' sound in rhotic environments) operates in each.
Option: 'It is not fair, in that both dialects are non-rhotic (i.e., deleting /ɹ/ in coda position), but he praises this phenomenon in RP and condemns the same thing in AAVE.'
Analysis of the option:
- The claim that both RP and AAVE are non-rhotic is already problematic, because it misrepresents the standard linguistic description of these dialects. RP is classically non-rhotic: in many syllable-final positions, the /ɹ/ is dropped, so words like 'car' and 'Lord' end with a vowel-like quality rather than an audible rhotic consonant.
- In contrast, AAVE is generally described as rhotic in most varieties and contexts, meaning the /ɹ/ is pronounced in postvocalic positions (e.g., in 'car' and 'for'). The presence of rhoticity in AAVE contrasts with the non-rhotic nature of RP. Therefore, the blanket statement that both are non-rhotic does not align with established phonological descriptions.
- The critic’s praise of RP’s non-rhoticity alongside condemnation of AAVE for similar features reflects a bias about which dialect features are acceptable or desirable, rather than an evidence-based comparison. If the claim were true that AAVE is non-rhotic in the same contexts, you would need to cite credible phonetic evidence for that specific AAVE variety; in many contexts, AAVE retains rhotic pronunciation, which would make the critique inconsistent.
- The core issue here is about fairness in evaluation based on linguistic evidence: the statement as given relies on an overgeneralization (both dialects non-rhotic) and inconsistent treatment of rhoticity across dialects. A more accurate evaluation would acknowledge that RP is non-rhotic by convention, while AAVE is typically rhotic, and thus Charles’s complaint about AAVE being 'butchered' for not fully pronouncing r-sounds would lack support if the particular variety he’s hearing is rhotic.
- Putting it succinctly: the key misstep is assuming both dialects share the same rhotic pattern; since they do not in standard descriptions, the claim is not fair as a linguistic judgment. The reasoning shows that the evaluation is biased or incomplete rather than a balanced appraisal of phonetic variation across dialects.
- In terms of potential misconceptions: one might think non-rhotic is inherently worse or more 'correct,' which is a prescriptive stance rather than a descriptive linguistic one. The correct approach is to describe features within each dialect and compare them on their own terms, not by applying value judgments.
- If you were to consider alternative options, a more accurate choice would explicitly note that RP is non-rhotic while AAVE is typically rhotic, and thus Charles’s critique lacks fair linguistic grounding when applied uniformly.
- Overall, the option identifies a bias and a factual inaccuracy (both dialects non-rhotic) but does so in a way that still centers on the fairness of evaluating dialect features using evidence rather than on the specific phonetic facts of rhoticity across RP and AAVE.
- In short, the reasoning points to the necessity of distinguishing rhoticity patterns between RP and AAVE and recognizing that the claim of both being non-rhotic is not supported by standard linguistic descriptions, which undercuts the fairness of Charles’s evaluation based solely on that premise.

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