Perceptions of African American English by Students in Speech-Language Pathology Programs

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Alison Eisel Hendricks ◽  
Makayla Watson-Wales ◽  
Paul E. Reed
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
American English ◽  
The United States ◽  
Current Data ◽  
African American English ◽  
Personal Attributes ◽  
Language Pathology ◽  
Mainstream American English

Purpose Despite the increased awareness that all dialects are valid linguistic forms, perceptions of African American English (AAE) use are often negative in the general population. Students training for careers as speech-language pathologists (SLPs) are required to have coursework relating to cultural and linguistic diversity. However, little is known about the perceptions of AAE among students in SLP programs. Method Seventy-three students from 46 randomly selected university programs in the United States completed an online survey including explicit statements regarding the validity of AAE and a matched-guide task assessing participants' implicit perceptions of AAE. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four audio pairings that differed in terms of the dialect spoken and the formality of the conversational context. Participants rated the speaker on 11 attributes (e.g., literate/illiterate, rich/poor) using the Revised Speech Dialect Attitudinal Scale. Results Participants indicated positive opinions of statements on the validity of AAE. However, across three categories of personal attributes—sociointellectual, aesthetic, and dynamism—participants who heard the Mainstream American English recordings rated the speaker differently than recordings including AAE. Conclusions Students in SLP programs express positive opinions regarding AAE, and yet, they rate speakers who speak AAE lower in personal attributes. The results highlight the importance of expanding training for future SLPs to include not only explicit statements about the value of AAE but also activities addressing implicit perceptions of dialect use. We provide a brief discussion of how the current data can be implemented for such an activity. Lesson plans and materials are provided as supplemental materials. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.15241638

African American English–Speaking Students: A Longitudinal Examination of Style Shifting From Kindergarten Through Second Grade

2014 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 143-157 ◽  
Author(s):  
Holly K. Craig ◽  
Giselle E. Kolenic ◽  
Stephanie L. Hensel
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
Low Socioeconomic Status ◽  
American English ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
African American English ◽  
Second Grade ◽  
Style Shifting ◽  
Mainstream American English ◽  
Metalinguistic Skills

Purpose The purpose of this longitudinal study was twofold: to examine shifting from African American English (AAE) to mainstream American English (MAE) across the early elementary grades, when students are first exposed to formal instruction in reading; and to examine how metalinguistic and cognitive variables influenced the students' dialectal adaptations from AAE to MAE in a literacy context with higher expectations for MAE. Method Participants were 102 typically developing AAE-speaking students enrolled in public schools in the northern Midwest. They were enrolled in the project at kindergarten and tested 3 times a year, for 3 years. Approximately half were male and half female, and two-thirds were from low socioeconomic status homes. Results A style shifting coefficient (SSC) was created to measure amounts of dialect change between contexts and over time by individuals. Some students shifted to MAE in literacy contexts, and shifting was not related to grade. Metalinguistic skills and SSC predicted reading, and metalinguistic skills predicted the SSC at 2nd grade. The findings indicated that cognitive executive functions may contribute to the SSC. Conclusions The results provide strong support for the dialect shifting–reading achievement hypothesis and indicated that metalinguistic and perhaps executive functioning are important influences on this linguistic adaptation.

Teachers' Content Knowledge and Pedagogical Beliefs Regarding the Use of African American English

2021 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 100-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily A. Diehm ◽  
Alison Eisel Hendricks
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Cultural Competence ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
American English ◽  
African American English ◽  
Pedagogical Beliefs ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
County Population ◽  
Ohio School Districts ◽  
Effective Assessment

Purpose In order to provide appropriate and effective assessment and instructional activities, teachers are encouraged to develop their cultural competency. Although speech-language pathologists (SLPs) receive training on the linguistic features of nonmainstream dialects of English, such as African American English (AAE), less is known about teachers' training, beliefs, and pedagogical knowledge surrounding this topic. Method Using stratified random sampling by county population, we invited educators within selected Ohio school districts to complete an online survey ( n = 17,548). The survey probed teachers' pre- and postservice training, beliefs, and knowledge of linguistic features and terminology relating to AAE. A total of 571 teachers completed at least 50% of the survey items (3.66% response rate). Results Few teachers report receiving training on AAE and demonstrated a limited grasp of linguistic terms commonly found in AAE literature; however, many teachers reported feeling confident in their abilities to identify features of AAE in written language tasks. In terms of school culture, teachers reported that they believed AAE to be more appropriate outside (rather than inside) the classroom, and only one third of teachers received resources to enhance their knowledge of the cultural and linguistic features of AAE. Conclusions Results suggest that teachers may benefit from increased access to training and materials to further develop their cultural competence. Given SLPs' familiarity with cultural and linguistic variability, SLPs may work to support teachers' cultural competence and encourage culturally appropriate assessment and intervention practices. Additional research is needed to determine how teachers' skills in these areas predict effectiveness/teaching ability and which factors are most important in the provision of culturally relevant instruction.

The information in third-person /s/: acquisition across dialects of American English

2007 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 133-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
JILL G. DE VILLIERS ◽  
VALERIE E. JOHNSON
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
American English ◽  
African American English ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Mainstream American English ◽  
Age Range

The production of third-person /s/ on English verbs seems to be ahead of comprehension. Mainstream American English (MAE) is contrasted with African American English (AAE), in which /s/ is rarely supplied. Two studies explored what information children get solely from /s/ on the end of a verb. Sixty-five MAE- and 65 AAE-speaking four- to seven-year-olds participated in one of two experimental picture-choice comprehension studies. Neither group of four-year-olds could use the /s/ to determine if the event was generic rather than past tense on a verb (e.g. cuts/cut), or whether it was a verb or a noun compound as in The penguin dresses/The penguin dress. MAE-speakers do not use the information in third-person /s/ alone until age five, and not reliably until age six years. In keeping with AAE production, AAE-speaking children do not use the information in /s/ at all in this age range.

scholarly journals Regional Variation in West and East Coast African-American English Prosody and Rap Flows

2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 713-745
Author(s):  
Steven Gilbers ◽  
Nienke Hoeksema ◽  
Kees de Bot ◽  
Wander Lowie
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
West Coast ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
Regional Variation ◽  
East Coast ◽  
American English ◽  
Regional Identity ◽  
The United States ◽  
African American English ◽  
Hip Hop Culture

Regional variation in African-American English (AAE) is especially salient to its speakers involved with hip-hop culture, as hip-hop assigns great importance to regional identity and regional accents are a key means of expressing regional identity. However, little is known about AAE regional variation regarding prosodic rhythm and melody. In hip-hop music, regional variation can also be observed, with different regions’ rap performances being characterized by distinct “flows” (i.e., rhythmic and melodic delivery), an observation which has not been quantitatively investigated yet. This study concerns regional variation in AAE speech and rap, specifically regarding the United States’ East and West Coasts. It investigates how East Coast and West Coast AAE prosody are distinct, how East Coast and West Coast rap flows differ, and whether the two domains follow a similar pattern: more rhythmic and melodic variation on the West Coast compared to the East Coast for both speech and rap. To this end, free speech and rap recordings of 16 prominent African-American members of the East Coast and West Coast hip-hop communities were phonetically analyzed regarding rhythm (e.g., syllable isochrony and musical timing) and melody (i.e., pitch fluctuation) using a combination of existing and novel methodological approaches. The results mostly confirm the hypotheses that East Coast AAE speech and rap are less rhythmically diverse and more monotone than West Coast AAE speech and rap, respectively. They also show that regional variation in AAE prosody and rap flows pattern in similar ways, suggesting a connection between rhythm and melody in language and music.

New Perspectives on African American English: The Role of Black-to-Black Contact

English Today ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 53-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simanique Moody
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
African American ◽  
American English ◽  
The United States ◽  
African American English ◽  
African Languages ◽  
Language Varieties ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Substrate Influence

One of the most widely researched language varieties in the field of sociolinguistics is African American English (AAE), a term used to describe a range of English dialects, from standard to vernacular, spoken by many (but not all) African Americans as well as by certain members of other ethnic groups who have had extensive contact with AAE speakers. Most linguists agree that AAE developed from contact between enslaved Africans and predominantly English-speaking Europeans (who spoke a range of English vernaculars) during the early to middle period of colonization of what is now known as the United States of America. Consequently, research on the development of AAE is traditionally framed in terms of the degree of contact with white English vernaculars, both during and after AAE genesis, with white vernaculars playing a primary, if not exclusive, role (McDavid & McDavid, 1951; Mufwene, 1996; Poplack, 2000; Poplack & Tagliamonte, 2001). Though some analyses of AAE allow for substrate influence from creole and/or African languages in its development (cf. Winford, 1997, 1998; Rickford, 1998, 2006; Wolfram & Thomas, 2002; Holm, 2004), many studies place a particular focus on Earlier African American varieties or Diaspora varieties, such as the Ex-Slave Recordings, Samaná English, and Liberian Settler English rather than contemporary AAE varieties spoken within U.S. borders (cf. Rickford, 1977, 1997, 2006; DeBose, 1988; Schneider 1989; Bailey, Maynor, & Cukor-Avila, 1991; Hannah, 1997; Singler, 1998, 2007a, 2007b; Kautzsch 2002). This research has helped further linguists’ understanding of AAE yet does not reflect its full history in the United States.

scholarly journals Dialect Awareness and Lexical Comprehension of Mainstream American English in African American English–Speaking Children

2014 ◽  
Vol 57 (5) ◽  
pp. 1883-1895 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Edwards ◽  
Megan Gross ◽  
Jianshen Chen ◽  
Maryellen C. MacDonald ◽  
David Kaplan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
American English ◽  
African American English ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Expressive Vocabulary ◽  
Vocabulary Size ◽  
Mixed Effect ◽  
Mixed Effect Models ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Mainstream American English

Purpose This study was designed to examine the relationships among minority dialect use, language ability, and young African American English (AAE)–speaking children's understanding and awareness of Mainstream American English (MAE). Method Eighty-three 4- to 8-year-old AAE-speaking children participated in 2 experimental tasks. One task evaluated their awareness of differences between MAE and AAE, whereas the other task evaluated their lexical comprehension of MAE in contexts that were ambiguous in AAE but unambiguous in MAE. Receptive and expressive vocabulary, receptive syntax, and dialect density were also assessed. Results The results of a series of mixed-effect models showed that children with larger expressive vocabularies performed better on both experimental tasks, relative to children with smaller expressive vocabularies. Dialect density was a significant predictor only of MAE lexical comprehension; children with higher levels of dialect density were less accurate on this task. Conclusions Both vocabulary size and dialect density independently influenced MAE lexical comprehension. The results suggest that children with high levels of nonmainstream dialect use have more difficulty understanding words in MAE, at least in challenging contexts, and suggest directions for future research.

How African American English-Speaking First Graders Segment and Rhyme Words and Nonwords With Final Consonant Clusters

2017 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 273-285 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy J. Shollenbarger ◽  
Gregory C. Robinson ◽  
Valentina Taran ◽  
Seo-eun Choi
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
First Graders ◽  
American English ◽  
African American English ◽  
Phoneme Segmentation ◽  
Experimental Conditions ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Final Cluster ◽  
Mainstream American English ◽  
Segmentation Task

Purpose This study explored how typically developing 1st grade African American English (AAE) speakers differ from mainstream American English (MAE) speakers in the completion of 2 common phonological awareness tasks (rhyming and phoneme segmentation) when the stimulus items were consonant–vowel–consonant–consonant (CVCC) words and nonwords. Method Forty-nine 1st graders met criteria for 2 dialect groups: AAE and MAE. Three conditions were tested in each rhyme and segmentation task: Real Words No Model, Real Words With a Model, and Nonwords With a Model. Results The AAE group had significantly more responses that rhymed CVCC words with consonant–vowel–consonant words and segmented CVCC words as consonant–vowel–consonant than the MAE group across all experimental conditions. In the rhyming task, the presence of a model in the real word condition elicited more reduced final cluster responses for both groups. In the segmentation task, the MAE group was at ceiling, so only the AAE group changed across the different stimulus presentations and reduced the final cluster less often when given a model. Conclusion Rhyming and phoneme segmentation performance can be influenced by a child's dialect when CVCC words are used.

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