Editorial

Welcome to the second issue of Volume 7 of Lifespans & Styles: Undergraduate Papers in Sociolinguistics. This issue includes five papers that continue the journal’s mission of showcasing excellence in undergraduate research in sociolinguistics. This issue’s papers are thematically similar to one another in very interesting ways – more so than any set of paper published in any previous issue. The first two focus on language and race, racism, and African American English; the other three are all about lifespan change and second language/dialect acquisition.

English BESA Morphosyntax Performance Among Spanish–English Bilinguals Who Use African American English

Purpose This study examined the use of African American English (AAE) among a group of young Latinx bilingual children and the accuracy of the English Morphosyntax subtest of the Bilingual English–Spanish Assessment (BESA) in classifying these children with and without developmental language disorder (DLD). Method Children ( N = 81) between the ages of 4;0 and 7;1 (years;months) completed a narrative task and the BESA Morphosyntax subtest. We identified DLD based on four reference measures. We compared specific dialectal features used by children with DLD and their typically developing peers. We also conducted an overall analysis of the BESA subtest and subsequent item-level analyses to determine if particular items were more likely to contribute to the correct classification of the participants. Results Children with DLD used three AAE forms in their narrative samples (subject–verb agreement, zero copula/auxiliary, or zero past tense) more frequently than their typically developing peers. Area-under-the-curve estimates for the cloze, sentence repetition, and composite scores of the BESA indicated that the assessment identified children with DLD in the sample with good sensitivity. Item analysis indicated that the majority of items (84%) significantly differentiated typically developing children and children with DLD. Conclusions The BESA English Morphosyntax subtest appears to be a valid tool for the identification of DLD in children exposed to AAE and Spanish. We provide practical implications and suggestions for future research addressing the identification of DLD among children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.

Comparison of the Diagnostic Evaluation of Language Variation–Screening Test Risk Subtest to Two Other Screeners for Low-Income Prekindergartners Who Speak African American English and Live in the Urban South

Purpose We compared the Risk subtest of the Diagnostic Evaluation of Language Variation–Screening Test (DELV–Screening Test Risk) with two other screeners when administered to low-income prekindergartners (pre-K) who spoke African American English (AAE) in the urban South. Method Participants were 73 children (six with a communication disorder and 67 without) enrolled in Head Start or a publicly funded pre-K in an urban Southern city. All children completed the DELV–Screening Test Risk, the Fluharty Preschool Speech and Language Screening Test–Second Edition (FLUHARTY-2), and the Washington and Craig Language Screener (WCLS). Test order was counterbalanced across participants. Results DELV–Screening Test Risk error scores were higher than those reported for its standardization sample, and scores on the other screeners were lower than their respective standardization/testing samples. The 52% fail rate of the DELV–Screening Test Risk did not differ significantly from the 48% rate of the WCLS. Fail rates of the FLUHARTY-2 ranged from 34% to 75%, depending on the quotient considered and whether scoring was modified for dialect. Although items and subtests assumed to measure similar constructs were correlated to each other, the three screeners led to inconsistent pass/fail outcomes for 44% of the children. Conclusions Like other screeners, the DELV–Screening Test Risk subtest may lead to high fail rates for low-income pre-K children who speak AAE in the urban South. Inconsistent outcomes across screeners underscore the critical need for more study and development of screeners within the field.

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

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

‘Where all my bad girls at?’

This article examines the polyvalence of racial(ised) representations in K-pop performances. The analysis of K-pop star CL’s (2013) song and video ‘Nappeun gijibae’ (‘The bad girl’) demonstrates how the artist projects an assertive femininity by embodying and localising the Bad Bitch: a sexually agentive figure of womanhood from US hip hop. CL’s use of African American English and conventionalised hip hop tropes helps resignify gijibae, a pejorative Korean term for women. By shifting between decontextualised styles invoking a different time and place, CL is able to build a kind of chronotopic capital that transforms fragmented styles into an empowered cosmopolitan femininity. However, although CL’s performance challenges Korean gendered norms in its use of local linguistic resources, her selective appropriations of US Black and Chicanx cultural signifiers reproduce narrow images of racialised femininities and reify a hierarchy of valuation along lines of gender and race.

Marking of Tense and Agreement in Language Samples by Children With and Without Specific Language Impairment in African American English and Southern White English: Evaluation of Scoring Approaches and Cut Scores Across Structures

Purpose As follow-up to a previous study of probes, we evaluated the marking of tense and agreement (T/A) in language samples by children with specific language impairment (SLI) and typically developing controls in African American English (AAE) and Southern White English (SWE) while also examining the clinical utility of different scoring approaches and cut scores across structures. Method The samples came from 70 AAE- and 36 SWE-speaking kindergartners, evenly divided between the SLI and typically developing groups. The structures were past tense, verbal – s, auxiliary BE present, and auxiliary BE past. The scoring approaches were unmodified, modified, and strategic; these approaches varied in the scoring of forms classified as nonmainstream and other. The cut scores were dialect-universal and dialect-specific. Results Although low numbers of some forms limited the analyses, the results generally supported those previously found for the probes. The children produced a large and diverse inventory of mainstream and nonmainstream T/A forms within the samples; strategic scoring led to the greatest differences between the clinical groups while reducing effects of the children's dialects; and dialect-specific cut scores resulted in better clinical classification accuracies, with measures of past tense leading to the highest levels of classification accuracy. Conclusions For children with SLI, the findings contribute to studies that call for a paradigm shift in how children's T/A deficits are assessed and treated across dialects. A comparison of findings from the samples and probes indicates that probes may be the better task for identifying T/A deficits in children with SLI in AAE and SWE. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.13564709