Language Deficits or Differences: What We Know about African American Vernacular English in the 21st Century

Harris, Yvette R.; Schroeder, Valarie M.

doi:10.5539/ies.v6n4p194

Cited by 19 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…This study contained two experiments that were designed to test two different explanations of the relationship between dialect mismatch and academic achievement. The results of the dialect knowledge experiment were consistent with the linguistic flexibility/metalinguistic awareness account (Craig et al, 2013, Terry et al, 2010; Terry & Connor, 2012; Terry et al, 2012, Terry, 2012) of this relationship, while the results of the MAE comprehension experiment were consistent with the cognitive resources account (Harris & Schroeder, 2013). We found that children with larger expressive vocabularies were more likely to figure out the associations between different dialects and different-colored monsters on the dialect awareness task, which suggests that better linguistic and metalinguistic skills may help children learn how to dialect shift.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 79%

“…We also found that children with greater dialect density had more difficulty recognizing ambiguous words in MAE and that this effect was independent of their expressive vocabulary size. This result provides support for the claim that children who speak a more dense non-mainstream dialect may need to expend more cognitive resources simply to understand classroom discourse in MAE (e.g., Harris & Schroeder, 2013). It should be noted that this study did not directly test either the linguistic flexibility/metalinguistic ability or the cognitive resources account of the relationship between academic achievement and dialect mismatch, as we did not assess either metalinguistic awareness or cognitive load.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 58%

“…It is possible that dialect mismatch, in and of itself, may make learning more difficult. Children who speak a non-mainstream dialect may need to use greater cognitive resources simply to understand instruction in MAE, resulting in fewer cognitive resources that are available for understanding what is being taught (e.g., Harris and Schroeder, 2013). Furthermore, children who speak AAE, in particular, may have difficulty in decoding at early stages of learning to read, given the phonological differences between MAE and AAE (Labov, 1995).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Edwards

Gross

Chen

et al. 2014

J Speech Lang Hear Res

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Purpose This study was designed to examine the relationships among minority dialect use, language ability, and young AAE-speaking children’s understanding and awareness of MAE. Methods 83 4- to 8-year-old African American English-speaking children participated in two experimental tasks. One task evaluated their awareness of differences between Mainstream American English (MAE) and African American English (AAE), while the other 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 non-mainstream dialect use have more difficulty understanding words in MAE, at least in challenging contexts and suggest directions for future research.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 79%

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 58%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Edwards

Gross

Chen

et al. 2014

J Speech Lang Hear Res

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“…Palestinian Arabic speakers in Israel, African American English speakers in the United States, and Cypriot Greek speakers in Cyprus) (For a review, see : Harris & Schroeder, 2013;Khamis-Dakwar & Makhoul, 2014). Collectively, these studies have accumulated evidence showing that linguistic and metalinguistic performances of children in oral-literacy mismatch situations differed relative to whether the examined linguistic feature and/or emergent literacy skill is exhibited similarly or differently in the two language varieties.…”

Section: The Development Of Diglossic Knowledge and Awareness In Oralmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Development of Sociolinguistic Diglossic Knowledge in Oral-Literacy Mismatch Situations: Preliminary Findings from Palestinian Arabs

Makhoul¹,

Copti-Mshael²,

Dakwar³

2015

PSYCH

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This study explores the explicit sociolinguistic knowledge and awareness of Arabic diglossia of forty Palestinian children in Israel, ages 6:11 -11:3 using the Diglossic Knowledge and Awareness Questionnaire, a subtest of the Arabic Diglossic Knowledge and Awareness Test (ADAT). Central to this approach is the recent insight that children who are learning to read and write in a language that is mismatched to their spoken language at home (referred to as an oral-literacy mismatch) need to develop linguistic awareness for both systems, as well as the relationship between them (Terry, Connor, Thomas-Tate, & Love, 2010; Terry, 2011). Our preliminary findings indicate that during third and fourth grades children develop the ability to define the two language varieties that exist in Arabic diglossia, and are able to report on their explicit knowledge of phonological and lexical interrelationships between the two linguistic systems. Furthermore, our findings also indicate that by the third grade the Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) variety is given a higher status by those children along with reports of its superiority and purity. These findings suggest a need to take into consideration this developmental milestone in any educational and clinical evaluation of children with and/or at risk to have learning and/or reading disabilities in diglossic language environments, such as Palestinian Arab students in Israel.

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“…Last, there is considerable evidence that it is more difficult for adult listeners to process an unfamiliar dialect, particularly in noise (Clopper, 2012;Clopper & Bradlow, 2008). Both Harris and Schroeder (2013) and Edwards et al (2014) proposed that such findings suggest that dialect mismatch will put non-MAE (NMAE) speakers at a disadvantage: In the noisy classroom environment, they need to expend additional cognitive resources simply to understand their teacher.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

A Prekindergarten Curriculum Supplement for Enhancing Mainstream American English Knowledge in Nonmainstream American English Speakers

Edwards

Rosin

2016

LSHSS

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Purpose The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of a curriculum supplement designed to enhance awareness of Mainstream American English (MAE) in African American English- (AAE-) speaking prekindergarten children. Method Children in 2 Head Start classrooms participated in the study. The experimental classroom received the Talking and Learning for Kindergarten program (Edwards, Rosin, Gross, & Chen, 2013), which used contrastive analysis to highlight morphological, phonological, and pragmatic differences between MAE and AAE. The control classroom received the Kindness Curriculum (Flook, Goldberg, Pinger, & Davidson, 2014), which was designed to promote mindfulness and emotional self-regulation. The amount of instruction was the same across the 2 programs. Both classrooms participated in pre- and posttest assessments. Results Children in the experimental classroom, but not the control classroom, showed significant improvement in 3 norm-referenced measures of phonological awareness and in an experimental measure that evaluated comprehension of words that are ambiguous in AAE, but unambiguous in MAE, because of morphological and phonological differences between the 2 dialects. Conclusion Although more research needs to be done on the efficacy of the Talking and Learning for Kindergarten program, these results suggest that it is possible to enhance AAE-speaking children's awareness of MAE prior to kindergarten entry.

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Language Deficits or Differences: What We Know about African American Vernacular English in the 21st Century

Cited by 19 publications

References 28 publications

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

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

The Development of Sociolinguistic Diglossic Knowledge in Oral-Literacy Mismatch Situations: Preliminary Findings from Palestinian Arabs

A Prekindergarten Curriculum Supplement for Enhancing Mainstream American English Knowledge in Nonmainstream American English Speakers

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