ABSTRACT
This chapter combines the discussion of competence with African American language and communication styles. The authors explain how competence has often been understood as a one-way evaluation. The social group that is the most powerful tends to decide if the marginalized group is competent. This automatic subordination of marginalized is problematic and unrealistic, since there are times when dominant group members enter into marginalized group communities and find themselves immediately incompetent because they do not speak the language or comprehend the communicative norms. By focusing on communication and language styles this chapter is able to demonstrate that not African Americans act alike, and also that sociolinguistic cues and communicative nuances are important to understand for anyone interested in acquainting themselves with African American communication.
