Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T19:50:01.575Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Distinguishing African American English from developmental errors in the language production of toddlers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 November 2005

RAMONDA HORTON–IKARD  and
SUSAN ELLIS WEISMER
RAMONDA HORTON–IKARD
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin–Madison
SUSAN ELLIS WEISMER
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin–Madison
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This study examined the use of nonstandard forms in the language production of typically developing toddlers. Forty-four African American and White children, ages 2.5 and 3.5 years, were assigned to one of four groups based on their chronological age and linguistic background. Language sample analysis and a listener judgment task were used to evaluate nonstandard speech. Results indicated that 2.5- and 3.5-year-old toddlers from African American English backgrounds produced similar amounts of nonstandard speech. However, 2.5-year-old toddlers from standard American English backgrounds produced greater amounts of nonstandard speech than their 3.5-year-old peers.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 26 , Issue 4 , October 2005 , pp. 597 - 620
Copyright
© 2005 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Baugh J. 1983. Black street speech. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
Baugh J. 1997. Linguistic discrimination in education. In R. Wodak & D. Corson (Eds.), Language policy and political issues in education (pp. 33– 41). Boston: Kluwer Academic.
Baugh J. 1999. Linguistic perceptions in black and white. Out of the mouth of slaves (pp.137– 147). Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
Bayley N. 1993. Scales of Infant Development (2nd ed.). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Bereiter K., & Engelman S. 1966. Teaching the disadvantaged child in the preschool. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice–Hall.
Berko J. 1958. The child's learning of English morphology. Word, 14, 150– 177.Google Scholar
Blake I. 1984. Language development in working class black children: An examination of form, content, and use. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Columbia University, New York.
Boysson–Bardies B., & Vihman G. 1991. Adaptation to language: Evidence from babbling and first words in four languages. Language, 67, 297– 319.Google Scholar
Brown R. 1973. A first language: The early stages. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Chapman R., Schwartz S., & Kay–Raining Bird E. 1991. Language skills of children and adolescents with Down syndrome: Comprehension. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 34, 1106– 1120.Google Scholar
Cole L. T. 1980. Developmental analysis of social dialect features in the spontaneous language of preschool black children. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL.
Cole P., & Taylor O. 1990. Performance of working class African–American children on three tests of articulation. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 21, 171– 176.Google Scholar
Crystal D. 2001. A dictionary of language. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
deVilliers J., & deVilliers P. 1973. A cross-sectional study on the acquisition of grammatical morphemes in child speech. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 2, 127– 139.Google Scholar
Dillard J. 1972. Black English: Its history and usage in the United States. New York: Random House.
Hoff–Ginsberg E. 1991. Mother–child conversation in different social classes and communicative settings. Child Development, 62, 782– 796.Google Scholar
Horton–Ikard R., Ellis Weismer S., & Evans J. 2001, February). AAE usage in mono-racial and biracial parent-toddler dyads. Poster presented at the Third Biennial Texas Research Symposium on Linguistic Diversity, Austin, TX.
Ingram D. 1995. The cultural basis of prosodic modifications to infants and children: A response to Fernald's universalist theory. Journal of Child Language, 22, 223– 233.Google Scholar
Isaacs G. 1996. Persistence of non-standard dialect in school-age children. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 39, 434– 441.Google Scholar
Johnston J. 2001. An alternate MLU calculation: Magnitude and variability effects. Journal of Speech Language, and Hearing Research, 44, 156– 164.Google Scholar
Joint Committee on Infant Hearing. 2000. JCIH year 2000 position statement: Principles and guidelines for early hearing detection and intervention programs. American Journal of Audiology, 9, 9– 29.
Klee T., & Fitzgerald M. 1985. The relation between grammatical development and mean length of utterance in morphemes. Journal of Child Language, 12, 251– 269.Google Scholar
Kovac C. 1980. Children's acquisition of variable features. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Georgetown University, Washington, DC.
Lahey M., Liebergott J., Chesnick M., Menyuk P., & Adams J. 1992. Variability in children's use of grammatical morphemes. Applied Psycholinguistics, 13, 373– 398.Google Scholar
Menyuk P. 1964. Syntactic rules used by children from preschool-first grade. Child Development, 35, 533– 546.Google Scholar
Miller J. F., & Chapman R. 2000. Systematic analysis of language transcripts [Computer software]. Madison, WI: Waisman Center, Language Analysis Laboratory.
Mufwene S., Rickford J., Bailey G., & Baugh J. 1998. African–American English: Structure, history, and use. New York: Routledge.
Oetting J., Cantrell J., & Horohov J. 2000. A study of specific language impairment (SLI) in the context of non-standard dialect. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 13, 25– 44.Google Scholar
Oetting J., & McDonald J. 2002. Methods for characterizing participants' nonmainstream dialect use in studies of specific language impairment. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 45, 505– 518.Google Scholar
Orr E. W. 1984. Twice as less: Black English and the performance of Black students in mathematics and science. New York: Norton.
Pollock K., & Meredith L. 2001. Phonetic transcription of African–American Vernacular English. Communication Disorders Quarterly, 23, 47– 54.Google Scholar
Purnell T., Idsardi W., & Baugh J. 1999. Perceptual and phonetic experiments on American English dialect identification. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 18, 10– 31.Google Scholar
Reveron W. 1978. The acquisition of four Black English morphological rules by Black preschool children. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, Columbus.
Rickford J. 1999. African American vernacular English. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
Schneider E. 1996. Varieties of English around the world: Focus on the USA. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.
Seymour H., Bland–Stewart L., & Green L. 1998. Difference versus deficit in child African–American English. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 29, 96– 107.Google Scholar
Shriberg L., & Kent R. 1995. Clinical phonetics (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Smitherman G. 1977. Talkin' and testifyin': The language of Black America. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. (Reprinted in 1986 by Wayne State University Press).
Steffensen M. 1974. The acquisition of Black English. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Illinois, Urbana–Champaign, IL.
Stockman I. 1986. Language acquisition in culturally and linguistically diverse populations: The Black child as a case study. In O. Taylor (Ed.), Nature of communication disorders in culturally and linguistically diverse populations (pp. 73– 116). Austin, TX: Pro-Ed.
Stockman I. 1996. Phonological development and disorders in African–American Children. In A. Kamhi, K. Pollock, & J. Harris (Eds.), Communication development and disorders in African–American children: Research, assessment, and intervention (pp. 117– 154). Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes.
Stockman I., Vaughn–Cooke F., & Wolfram W. 1982. Center for Applied Linguistics & National Institute of Education (U.S.), A developmental study of Black English—Phase I (final report). Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.
Valian V. 1999. Parental replies: Linguistic status and didatic rules. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Washington J. 1996. Issues in assessing the language abilities of African–American Children. In A. Kamhi, K. Pollock, & J. Harris (Eds.), Communication development and disorders in African American children (pp. 35– 55). Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes.
Washington J., & Craig H. 1994. Dialectal forms during discourse of urban, African–American preschoolers living in poverty. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 37, 816– 823.Google Scholar
Washington J., & Craig H. 2002. Morpho-syntactic forms of African–American English used by young children and their caregivers. Applied Psycholinguistics, 23, 209– 231.Google Scholar
Wolfram W. 1991. Dialects and American English. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice–Hall.
Wolfram W., Adger C., & Christian D. 1999. Dialects in schools and communities. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Wolfram W., & Schilling–Estes N. 1998. American English: Dialects and variation. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Wyatt T. 1991. Linguistic constraints on copula production in Black English child speech. Unpublished dissertation, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA.
Zimmerman I., Steiner V., & Pond R. 1992. The Preschool Language Scale—3. Chicago: Psychological Corporation.