Variable dialect switching among African American children: Inferences about working memory

Terry, J. Michael; Hendrick, Randall; Evangelou, Evangelos; Smith, Richard L.

doi:10.1016/j.lingua.2010.04.013

Cited by 32 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…Alternatively, African American children in gifted education classrooms may have greater cognitive abilities than children in general education classrooms, which may be supportive of code-switching between AAE and MAE (Terry, Hendrick, Evangelou, & Smith, 2010). …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Narrative Performance of Gifted African American School-Aged Children From Low-Income Backgrounds

Mills

2015

Am J Speech Lang Pathol

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Purpose This study investigated classroom differences in the narrative performance of school-age African American English (AAE)-speaking children in gifted and general education classrooms. Method 43 children, grades 2 through 5, each generated fictional narratives in response to the Frog, Where Are You? book (Mayer, 1969). Differences in performance on traditional narrative measures (total number of C-units, number of different words, and mean length of utterance in words) and on AAE production (dialect density measure) between children in gifted- and general education classrooms were examined. Results Classroom-based differences in TNCU, NDW, and MLU-w did not exist. Children in gifted education classrooms produced narratives with lower DDM than did children in general educated classrooms. Direct logistic regression assessed whether narrative DDM scores offered additional information about giftedness beyond scores on the PPVT-4—a standard measure of language ability. Results indicated that a model with only PPVT-4 scores best discriminated children in the two classrooms. Conclusion African American children across gifted and general education classrooms produce fictional narratives of similar length, lexical diversity, and syntax complexity. However, African American children in gifted education classrooms may produce lower rates of AAE and perform better on standard measures of vocabulary than children in general education classrooms.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Narrative Performance of Gifted African American School-Aged Children From Low-Income Backgrounds

Mills

2015

Am J Speech Lang Pathol

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“…It is not hard to see how AAE patterns came to be seen as problematic. Strong negative correlations have been reported between density of AAE patterns in a child's speech and achievement in literacy (Charity et al, 2004; and even mathematics (J. M. Terry, Hendrick, Evangelou, & Smith, 2010). As noted earlier, Charity et al (2004) proposed that the mismatch between the AAE spoken at home and the GAE in school materials could make it harder for children to recognize written forms that did not match their mental representations of those words.…”

Section: Understanding Language Diversitymentioning

confidence: 98%

Removing obstacles for African American English-speaking children through greater understanding of language difference.

Pearson¹,

Conner²,

Jackson³

2013

Developmental Psychology

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Language difference among speakers of African American English (AAE) has often been considered language deficit, based on a lack of understanding about the AAE variety. Following Labov (1972), Wolfram (1969), Green (2002, 2011), and others, we define AAE as a complex rule-governed linguistic system and briefly discuss language structures that it shares with general American English (GAE) and others that are unique to AAE. We suggest ways in which mistaken ideas about the language variety add to children's difficulties in learning the mainstream dialect and, in effect, deny them the benefits of their educational programs. We propose that a linguistically informed approach that highlights correspondences between AAE and the mainstream dialect and trains students and teachers to understand language varieties at a metalinguistic level creates environments that support the academic achievement of AAE-speaking students. Finally, we present 3 program types that are recommended for helping students achieve the skills they need to be successful in multiple linguistic environments.

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“…Most important and quite startling is the finding by Terry et al. () that verbal /s/ interferes with black students’ abilities to do computation in word problems. This result has recently been reinforced by ERP (event‐related potential) experiments that show –s on the verb producing a neural response characteristic of ungrammatical sentences (Terry et al.…”

Section: Afterwordmentioning

confidence: 99%

Afterword: Where are we now?

Labov

2016

Journal of Sociolinguistics

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Labov recapitulates his view of linguistics when he entered the field in 1961, and what he hoped to achieve. He acknowledges Meyerhoff's stress on the convergence of methods and Coupland's view of the vernacular as an ‘overdetermined’ concept which is simultaneously undervalued. The value of new methods for the study of variation has been tested by their application to other cultures (Gal), to African American Vernacular English (Rickford), and to indigenous and endangered languages (Stanford). Thomas indicates how the Atlas of North American English builds on traditional methods of American dialect geography. Johnstone's account of Labov's approach to narrative links sociolinguistic work to broader areas in the humanities. Cornips and Gregersen see Labov's contribution to general linguistic theory as a joint enterprise in which intuitions and observations form a harmonious database.

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Variable dialect switching among African American children: Inferences about working memory

Cited by 32 publications

References 20 publications

Narrative Performance of Gifted African American School-Aged Children From Low-Income Backgrounds

Narrative Performance of Gifted African American School-Aged Children From Low-Income Backgrounds

Removing obstacles for African American English-speaking children through greater understanding of language difference.

Afterword: Where are we now?

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