Language, Literacy, and Linguistic Differences: The case of African American English

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Language, Literacy, and Linguistic Differences
The case of African American English

• Julie A. Washington
• University of Wisconsin-Madison
• February 21, 2008
• Presented in Van Leer, Jerusalem

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African American English

• A systematic, rule-governed variation of English
• Used by most African Americans in the United
  States
• Rooted in slavery
• Developed as an oral language with no written
  counterpart
• A low prestige dialect whose legitimacy is still
  debated in some circles

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African American English

• Considered by many to be a poor reproduction of
  Standard English
• Linguists challenged this view and changed the
  perception of dialect in academic circles by
  carefully documenting the rules and regularities
  that characterize this linguistic system.

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AAE adds and deletes bound morphemes

• Zero Possessive
• Zero Past Tense
• Zero Plural
• Third person singular -s

• I ride in my brother car
• And then he fix__ the food
• A girl puttin some glass_ on the table.
• Sometimes she wear__ a baseball cap.

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Transformations of the main verb or verb phrase

• Deletion of the copula/auxiliary
• Subject-Verb Agreement
• Habitual be
• Remote past been

• He __ runnin fast
• He __ hungry.
• They was lookin for the big dog.
• He be gettin some ice cream
• I been knowin how to swim.

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Pronominal Differences

• Undifferentiated pronoun case
• Regularized reflexive
• Appositive Pronoun

• Them pullin them up the hill.
• He hurt hisself when he fell off his bike
• My mama she took me to the movies

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Other

• Fitna/sposeta/bouta (communicates imminent action
• Multiple negation
• Double modal

• Im fitna go outside.
• Im bouta ride my bike)
• He aint never got no candy no how.
• Im am going to see if I can go.

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The Sound System also is affected

• f /? , v/ð and t/ ? in intervocalic and
  postvocalic positions
• d/ð in prevocalic positions
• Consonant cluster reduction

• Wif/with bave/bathe wit/with
• Dis/this dem/them
• Col-/cold

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HISTORY OF AAE

• The history of AAE is critically important to
  consider
• It evolved from slavery
• Represents a creolization of English that
  developed to allow slaves from different African
  countries to communicate with each other
• Was/is considered a simplification/poor
  reproduction of English grammar
• Consequently, AAE has had little prestige as a
  dialect of English it is associated with
  underemployment, oppression, and undereducation
  because it is considered by many to represent
  ignorance and poverty, encouraging discrimination
  against its users.

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History of AAE

• This low prestige position has had a significant
  impact on repeated attempts to introduce AAE into
  schools and has negatively impacted teachers and
  societys expectations of African American
  children.
• Martin Luther King Junior Elementary School
  Children et al. v. Ann Arbor School District,
  1979
• Ebonics Controversy, 1996

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History of AAE

• Linguistic scholars (Walt Wolfram, William Labov,
  Roger Shuy, Joan Baratz, and Ralph Fasold)
  demonstrated that AAE is a legitimate dialect of
  English rather than a deficient form of it.
• After considerable debate, most University
  professors and other researchers were convinced
  by the scientific evidence.

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AAE and Education

• However it has not been so easy to convince the
  education establishment.
• An early attempt to introduce dialect into the
  educational system occurred in the form of
  dialect readers.

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African American English and Education

• Dialect readers were reading texts/story books
  that were written in AAE and were designed to be
  used as a way to use the childs community
  language, AAE, as a way to improve reading
  instruction by beginning where the child was
  linguistically and progressing toward use of
  Standard American English (SAE).

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Dialect Readers

• 1a) Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named
  Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to
  Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know
  that you are a teacher come from God for no one
  can do these signs that you do, unless God is
  with him."
• Jesus answered him, "Truly, truly, I say to you,
  unless one is born anew, he cannot see the
  kingdom of God." (SE, Revised Standard Version,
  p. 149)

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Dialect Readers

• (1b) It was a man named Nicodemus. He was a
  leader of the Jews. This man, he come to Jesus in
  the night and say, "Rabbi, we know you a teacher
  that come from God, cause can't nobody do the
  things you be doing 'cept he got God with him."
• Jesus, he tell him say, "This ain't no jive, if a
  man ain't born over again, ain' no way he gonna
  get to know God." (AAVE version, p. 150)

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Dialect Readers

• These readers were a resounding failure
• AAE is a dialect that developed in the oral
  rather than the written domain. Accordingly, the
  rules for inclusion and exclusion of dialect
  features are governed largely by the
  conversational context.

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Dialect Readers

• These rules were not well understood at the time
  that dialect readers were developed and so the
  readers were stilted and unauthentic in their
  presentation of dialect. Neither teachers, nor
  students liked them.
• More important, research suggested that while
  they made students feel good about having books
  that validated there community language, they
  were not successful for helping students move
  toward standard classroom language

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Dialect Readers

• The educational community was outraged that this
  poor English would be used in books and
  classrooms. It still was widely believed outside
  of universities that the dialect was an
  impoverished form of English that should not be
  perpetuated by schools.

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AAE and Education

• Nationally, this continues to be the prevailing
  view of dialect use in classrooms. It is in our
  school districts and universities where these
  views are changing.
• However. teachers and parents are becoming more
  open to considering the role of dialect in
  education as the national spotlight has focused
  on the gap in achievement between African
  American and White children

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The Achievement Gap

• There is a gap in achievement between African
  American children and their peers that has been
  longstanding and intractable. The gap in reading
  achievement has been of particular concern
  because reading undergirds all academic subjects,
  including mathematics, science, language arts,
  and social studies.

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Preschool Achievement Gap
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The Achievement Gap

• In 2003 only 12 of African American 4th graders
  reached the proficient levels on the National
  Assement of Educational Progress (NAEP) and 61
  did not reach basic levels.
• By 8th grade only 7 reached proficient levels
  (Education Trust, 2003).

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The Achievement Gap

• AAE represents an inherent mismatch between the
  language that most African American children
  learn to speak in their homes and that which they
  will encounter in schools.

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Dialectal Variation and Literacy Skills

• Performance of 65 typically developing 2nd
  through 5th graders in an Urban community
• 13 2nd graders
• 27 3rd graders
• 11 4th graders
• 14 5th graders
• 32 boys and 33 girls
• 30 overall were low income
• Gray Oral Reading Test-3 (GORT-3)

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Dialectal Variation and Literacy Skills

• GORT-3
• 13 passages consisting of one topic centered
  paragraph
• Passages vary in length, syntactic complexity,
  and vocabulary difficulty as test progresses
• Appropriate for children 70 1811 years of age

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Dialectal Variation and Literacy Skills

• Scoring results in a raw score, SS, AE, and
  iles
• Assesses students reading fluency (rate and
  accuracy), and comprehension
• Rate and Accuracy result in Passage Score there
  is a Comprehension Score and an Oral Reading
  Quotient (ORQ) which combines the Fluency
  Comprehension component.

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Dialectal Variation and Literacy Skills

• We scored Variations from Print as miscues or
  AAE
• 9 types of miscues ranging from substitutions of
  words with similar functions (pronoun/pronoun) to
  self-corrections, to omission of words from the
  passage

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Dialectal Variation and Literacy Skills

• Self corrections were examined further for their
  relationship to AAE
• Passages were scored twice
• once to identify all variations from print and,
• then to identify variations that were consistent
  with AAE

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Dialectal Variation and Literacy Skills

• RESULTS
• 60/65 students (92) used AAE during oral
  reading
• No statistically significant gender or SES
  differences in scoring using either published or
  AAE scoring credits
• GORT-3 standard scores control for grade, so no
  systematic variation.

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Dialectal Variation and Literacy Skills

• Of 1,740 variations from print, 21 could be
  characterized as AAE features
• Low, negative correlation between overall use of
  dialect and Accuracy (r -.35, p .006), and
  Rate (r -.26, p .04)
• That is, as use of AAE increased, rate and
  accuracy decreased.

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Dialectal Variation and Literacy Skills

• CONCLUSIONS
• GORT-3 was normally distributed, and appears
  appropriate for use with AA children
• AAE is produced while reading SAE texts aloud
• Some students appeared to improve SAE accuracy in
  a trade-off with rate

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Dialect Density during Reading (Craig, Thompson,
Washington Potter, 2004)
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AAE and Literacy

• A dialect shift occurred at 3rd grade, reducing
  feature production from 1 feature per every
  approximately 20 words to 1 feature for every
  approximately 50 words

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What about writing?

• African American students use AAE in writing if
  they use it in oral language
• African American students who can write in SAE
  can also speak SAE
• Writing is both a bridge and a mirror into
  code-switching with African American students

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3rd grade Writing sample unedited

• October 12, 2007
• Writing Journal
• My Mom
• One day me and my mom was(were) at home because
  we was(were) about to go. I went outside. I was
  waiting. I open(ed) the garage and get(got) my
  bike out. I went ride?? for a minite(minute) and
  nobody was out. So I went back inside and went to
  my mom(s) room and she was watching TV and I
  tune(d) off to TV and tooed(told) my mom to stop
  watching TV. So we had play(ed) a game call
  lonede. My mom had mast up 3 time(s) on the game
  and she got it write. Then we went to the store.
  I had buy(bought) some chips, candy and a juice.

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7th grade Writing Sample third and final edited
version

• Dear, cafeteria manager
• I pay two dollars and fifty cent(s) every day,
  and I want my lunch to be good if it cost(s) so
  much. The lunch makes my stomach hurt, and I have
  no energy after I am done eating lunch. Three
  thing(s) I think we should eat at lunch is(are)
• 1 FRUIT fruit is healthy, and taste(s) better
  than the food we eat in are(our) lunch. We have
  some fruit in are(our) lunch, but we dont have
  enough. We have peaches and oranges, but we dont
  have fruit like apples, bananas, or cherries.
  Everybody needs more than two varieties of fruit.
• 2 DRINKS we should have different varieties to
  dring. All we have to drink is plain or chocolate
  mile. Some times I want bottle(d) water or
  kool-aid. Some times the milk is spoiled to. If
  we had orange juice or something more people
  would eat lunch.

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Student AAE and Linguistic Skills (Craig
Washington, 1994, 1995)

• At school entry, LSES preschoolers who were the
  heaviest feature producers, were also producing
  the most advanced syntax and semantics

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Student AAE and Linguistic Skills (Craig
Washington, 1994, 1995)
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AAE and Reading Achievement

• This advantage disappears almost immediately
  after children enter school.
• Students who have not learned to use the school
  language code by the end of third grade are one
  or more grade levels behind by the time they get
  to 4th or 5th grade!

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The Future for AAE Speakers Code-switching in
the Classroom

• Step One Buy In!
• Teachers receive on going professional
  development designed to familiarize them with
  dialectal variations.
• An important focus is agreement on the need for
  teaching children to use the standard classroom
  code

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The Future for AAE Speakers Code-switching in
the Classroom

• Language is an ethnic and peer identity issue!
• Step Two With older children Buy In!
• The goal is to have teachers and students
  recognize that these are cultural language forms
  and are to be respected. Research demonstrates
  that when teachers are familiarized with AAE
  features that they are more sensitive and
  effective in their approach to teaching SAE.

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The Future for AAE Speakers Code-switching in
the Classroom

• Step Three Teachers make an explicit distinction
  between school language and home language
  during instruction and when referencing the
  dialect.
• In reading, writing, and oral language a
  contrastive approach is used to move the students
  toward use of the standard classroom language
  code.
• Improves students meta-awareness

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The Future for AAE Speakers Code-switching in
the Classroom

• Contrastive Analysis
• Orally Modeling, expansion, elicited imitation
• Writing Encourage student writing. Where dialect
  occurs, write standard sentence above or below
  and discuss differences. When students become
  more familiar with standard forms, they will
  change them independently
• Reading Oral reading in small groups where
  teachers can guide decoding of every word and
  every sound.

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The Future for AAE Speakers Code-switching in
the Classroom

• Students, teachers, and administrators have to
  develop a common vocabulary and expectations for
  code-switching. Students become partners in
  code-switching instruction.

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Conclusions

• Nationally, there is low tolerance for including
  heritage languages in instructional contexts,
  but locally teachers and administrators are
  beginning to acknowledge the value of using the
  childs community language to inform instruction.

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Conclusions

• Reading is essentially a language skill. Engaging
  the student linguistically is necessary for
  literacy to develop as expected.
• Students who use languages or dialects that
  differ from the school language or dialect are
  disadvantaged from the outset.

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Conclusions

• Identifying and acknowledging the role of the
  home language is critical if progress is to be
  made toward improvement of poor reading
  performance.
• Research provides the information that teachers
  and other practitioners need to make informed
  decisions about how to proceed, what to target,
  and when to begin.

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Conclusions

• In order to bring (African Americans) into the
  mainstream of American society, schools must take
  into account the existence of a ''home language''
  if it is different from standard English.
• -Federal District Judge Charles W. Joiner
• (The Ann Arbor Black English decision, 1979)