Rhetorical argument, folk linguistics, and content-oriented discourse analysis: A follow-up study

•The current study is a replication of Preston (1994).•Participants felt that AAE was neither proper nor appropriate.•Participants believed that vernacular varieties will be acquired by those living in a certain context.•Participants did not consider the reasons why non-standard varieties might persist.

In 1994, Dennis Preston published “Content-Oriented Discourse Analysis and Folk Linguistics”, in which he applied Deborah Schiffrin’s argument structure analysis and Vantage Theory to folk-linguistic data. The present study applies Schiffrin’s analysis to similar folk-linguistic data, as both Preston’s and my subjects discussed African American English. Preston found that his subjects used Oppositional Argument while the subjects in the present study used Rhetorical Argument. According to Schiffrin’s analysis, arguments contain positions, dispute, and support. The resulting analysis compares the conclusions that can be drawn from each set of arguments, such as social and distributional facts about language variety, and facts about variety acquisition and use.