ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at purported influence of 'black street speech' on youth language elsewhere. Investigation of youth language has a central place in modern linguistic research. It also looks at speakers' ethnicity and friendship network and their interactions' effect on language. The connection between language and street culture in linguistic research is very much associated with research on the language of groups of young male black speakers in the United States who speak African American Vernacular English. Labov thus argues that there is a very close association between participation in street culture and the language of this group of young speakers. Young speakers evaluate language forms differently from older speakers and youth language may of course also include non-standard forms. Consider the latter as adults, ethnic-majority standard language speakers and the former young speakers who represent a subculture associated with street culture, low-status and minority-ethnic speakers.
