SOURCE: "The Use of Folktalk in Novels by Black Women Writers," in CLA Journal, Vol. XXIII, No. 3, March, 1980, pp. 266-72.

In the following essay, Lee assesses the use of dialect in Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, and in works by Toni Morrison and GayI Jones.

The language of any people reflects their thoughts, their values, their culture. Instead of using "conventional English" to express their themes, many black women novelists employ a folktalk that is metaphorical, instructive, and entertaining. Although black novelists often use "conventional English" to carry the narrative voice in their works, they use folk language to capture the more subtle dynamics of black life from testifying to signifying. Ironically (or perhaps naturally), the folktalk that goes on among mothers and daughters in novels by modern black women writers all centers on the menfolk. Significantly, this is in keeping with an increasing trend...