Contrastive versus Non-contrastive features in African American English child speech, ages 4-12.

Janice Jackson, Atlanta GA & Barbara Zurer Pearson, Amherst MA

http://www.umass.edu/aae/

ASHA, Philadelphia November 20, 2004

Diagnosing Disorder: NON-Contrastive Features:

Past-tense copula, auxiliary (They were dirty, it was raining.)

Variables: double-wh (Who ate what?)

Long distance movement: (When did he say he hurt himself? vs. When did he say how he hurt himself?)

Theory of Mind syntax: (What did he say he caught? vs. What did he catch? He’s thinking about his cake.)

Non-word repetition (Modified to accommodate AAE phonotactics, eg. Koo-bow-faup.)

Identifying Dialect: with Contrastive Features:

Phonological features [f] for /th/: (“maf” not “math”)

Final consonant phonotactics: *CC# (“tes” not “test”)

Morphosyntactic features: Invariant 3rd person -s: (I have, you have, he have; I wash,

you wash, he wash, etc..)

Invariant past copula/aux: (he was, we was, they was)

Note: There are many other contrastive features, but they were not as reliable as indicators in our large-scale testing.

The Study

Data Source, DELV Tryout Research Participants: Recruited from two varieties, African-American English (AAE) and

mainstream American English (MAE). Criteria for membership in the AAE group were 1) African American background (by parent self-report); and 2) residence in a community of predominantly African Americans (by census report). Criteria for membership in the MAE group: 1) predominately European American background (by parent and examiner report); and 2) from communities which did not have a predominance of AA residents. (Note: 34 of the 475 reported AA ethnicity; 82 reported Hispanic ethnicity but spoke only one language in the home.) The parent education level of 87% of the sample was high school or lower (only 3% had finished college). The lower parent education levels were especially recruited because homes with lower education levels are thought to have higher levels of AAE usage (Craig & Washington, 1998). Similarly, the language impaired (LI) population was oversampled to allow comparisons between LI children and Typically-developing (TD) children with adequate statistical power.

By language variety and clinical status:

AAE4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Total

TD F 58 68 84 5 19 14 17 9 13 287

M 51 63 59 10 14 13 20 10 14 254

LI F 11 18 22 4 10 6 12 7 8 98

M 16 27 28 12 19 9 18 7 8 144

Total 136 176 193 31 62 42 67 33 43 758

MAE4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Total

TD F 32 35 47 6 14 12 10 10 16 182

M 28 26 26 10 6 8 11 8 15 138

LI F 8 6 10 3 8 7 5 4 4 55

M 13 26 24 6 11 5 9 2 7 100

Total 81 90 107 25 39 32 35 24 42 475

Data collected by The Psychological Corporation in conjunction with NIH Contract N01-DC8-2104 to Harry Seymour, P.I.

Sample Non-contrastive item: DELV Tryout Research

from the DELV-Screening Test (Seymour, Roeper & de Villiers, 2003, copyright TPC, 2000).

These children are planning a surprise party for their favorite teacher. Everyone was going to bring some food for the party, but the boy didn’t know what to bring. He asked the woman at the grocery store, “what shall I bring my teacher? “The woman told him his teacher loved bologna, so that’s what the boy decided to bring her.Who did the boy ask what to bring?

Diagnostic: Where AAE and MAE do not contrast:

Syntactic Bootstrapping / Fast Mapping

0

5

10

15

20

4 5 6 7 8 9

Age

Average Score /21

AAEMAE

Syntactic Bootstrapping / Fast Mapping

0

5

10

15

20

4 5 6 7 8 9

Age

Average Score /21

IMPAIREDTYPICAL

But where Typical Development and Impairment DO. From DELV Tryout Research, Seymour & Pearson (Eds.), 2004.

Sample CONTRASTIVE Items DELV Tryout Research

Morphosyntax

Point to the sleeping bags.) I see sleeping bags. (point to the bed). I see a bed. (Point to the boys.) The boys always sleep in the sleeping bags, (Point to the girl). But the girl always…

PhonologyI want you to say exactly what I say:1) Trial Item: I see a man 2) I see her brushing her teeth.3) I see a bird taking a bath.

From DELV (Seymour, Roeper, & de Villiers, 2003, copyright TPC, 2000)

Identification: Where AAE and MAE do contrast:

Average number of responses characteristic of AAE, not MAE.

From DELV Tryout Research, Seymour and Pearson, 2004.

Screener Identifier Items

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

4 5 6 7 8 9

Age

Average Score /16

IMPAIRED AAE

IMPAIRED MAE

TYPICAL AAE

TYPICAL MAE

Note POOR diagnostic value (of contrastive items):

AAE-Typically Developing and Language Impaired ambiguous through age 7.

MAE-Impaired and AAE-Typically Developing ambiguous throughout age range.

Around age 8 there is a sharp downturn in the number of AAE children who are classified by the DELV Screener as “strongdifference” from MAE.

The drop is especially sharp among the TD children (and also calculated by DELV passers versus failers) and a sharp rise in MAE speakers from 7 to 8.

Few LI children even with MAE input resemble MAE speakers. Most are “strong difference” from MAE.

Another illustration of the move toward MAE

AA children classified as MAE speakers (or as code-switchers), by age and clinical status:

AAE Dialect Density by Age (TD only)

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1

4 5 6 7 8 9

Age

Percent of children

mae

somdif

strdif

AAE Dialect Density by Age (LI only)

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1

4 5 6 7 8 9

Age

Percent of children

mae

somdif

strdif

Similar results with larger group of items and larger age range

(from Dialect Sensitive Language Test, DSLT) :

Predictable Non-MAE Responses

by Age and Dialect

0

4

8

12

16

20

24

4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Age

Average (of 32)

TD-AAE

LI-AAE

TD-MAE

LI-MAE

Further questions (using the more extensive data from the DSLT):

Do different contrastive features have different paths of development? Zero -ed, multiple negation, plural “s”; possessive noun (the horse’s bowl)?

Do the patterns of occurrence of the set of features and its subsets vary in AA children

whose parents have different levels of education?

from different regions of the country? by gender?

Q1:(Watch relationship of AAE-TD and MAE-LI)

Instances of zero past "-ed"

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1

1.2

1.4

4-5 6-7 8-9 10-12

Age in years

Average (of 5)

AAE-LI

MAE-LI

AAE-TD

MAE-TD

Instances of Multiple Negation

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1

1.2

1.4

1.6

4-5 6-7 8-9 10-12

Age in years

Average (of 3)

AAE-LI

MAE-LI

AAE-TD

MAE-TD

Possessive nouns (eg. horse’s)

Instances of Invariant Possessive Noun

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

4-5 6-7 8-9 10-12

Age in years

Average (of 3)

AAE-LI

MAE-LI

AAE-TD

MAE-TD

Instances of zero 3rd -s

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5

5

4-5 6-7 8-9 10-12

Age in years

Average (of 5)

AAE-LI

MAE-LI

AAE-TD

MAE-TD

Both AAE-TD and AAE-LI higher than MAE

They was/they were

Instances of Invariant "Was"

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

4-5 6-7 8-9 10-12

Age in years

AAE-LI

MAE-LI

AAE-TD

MAE-TD

Do/don’t & have/has

Instances of Invariant "Do"

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4-5 6-7 8-9 10-12

Age in years

Average (of 4)

AAE-LI

MAE-LI

AAE-TD

MAE-TD

Instances of Invariant "Have"

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1

1.2

1.4

1.6

4-5 6-7 8-9 10-12

Age in years

Average (of 2)

AAE-LI

MAE-LI

AAE-TD

MAE-TD

Present tense copula or aux.

Instances of zero "is" or "are" copula or auxiliary

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

4-5 6-7 8-9 10-12

Age in years

Average (of 3)

AAE-LI

MAE-LI

AAE-TD

MAE-TD

Question 2: by region, gender, and education level

By regionAAE

4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 TotalNorthCentral

42 57 57 4 26 4 13 6 9 218

Northeast 11 13 10 5 6 4 5 -- 1 55

South 73 100 120 22 30 33 45 27 32 482

West 9 6 6 -- -- 1 4 -- 1 27

Total 136 176 193 31 62 42 67 33 43 758

Non-MAE Responses by Region(AAE-TD only)

0

4

8

12

16

20

4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Age

Average

NC

NE

SO

Non-MAE Responses by Region(AAE-LI only)

0

4

8

12

16

20

24

4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Age

Average

NC

NE

SO

By parent education level

Fig. Non MAE Responses (of 34) by PED Level AAE-TD only

0

6

12

18

24

30

4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

ages

1234

AAE TD4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Total

1 (< 8 yrs) 1 0 4 1 0 0 0 0 0 6

2 (<12 yrs) 27 21 32 4 4 4 5 2 2 101

3 (hs degreee) 63 83 79 6 26 19 22 13 19 330

4 (> 12 yrs) 13 25 25 4 3 4 10 4 6 94

5 (college deg) 5 2 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 10

109 131 143 15 33 27 37 19 27 541

F = 5.758, p < .001

Post hoc shows Level 2 significantly different from Levels 3 and 4.

By gender

Predictable Non-MAE Responses -by Gender (AAE-TD)

0

4

8

12

16

20

24

4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Age

Average (of 32)

F

M

Predictable Non-MAE Responses by Gender (MAE-TD)

0

4

8

12

16

20

24

4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Age

Average (of 32)

F

M

AAE4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Total

NorthCentral

42 57 57 4 26 4 13 6 9 218

Northeast 11 13 10 5 6 4 5 -- 1 55

South 73 100 120 22 30 33 45 27 32 482

West 9 6 6 -- -- 1 4 -- 1 27

Total 136 176 193 31 62 42 67 33 43 758

Both MAE and AAE (TD)

F < 1, n.s.

Summary AAE patterns diminish over time in test context, but

remain significant in over half the subjects Only minor effects of gender were found at this age

range. Only minor effects of region were found on this

selection of test items. The effect of parent education level in this population

was seen between finishing high school and not finishing high school.

Invariant verb conjugations in the present tense show the greatest difference from MAE among these features.

References Diagnostic Evaluation of Language Variation (DELV), Seymour,

Roeper, & de Villiers, Harcourt Assessments, Inc. 2003. Stockman, Newkirk, Guillory, & Seibert, Dialect Density and

Standardized Test Outcomes: Pilot Study, Asha 2003, Chicago, IL.

Seymour, H. N. & Pearson, B. Z. (Eds.) 2004, Seminars in Speech and Language, 25 (1).

Washington, J. A. & Craig, H. K. (2002). Morphosyntactic forms of AAE used by young children and their caregivers. Applied Psycholinguistics, 23, 209-231. (also Craig et al. 2003).

Acknowledgment: This work was supported by NIH Contract N01-DC-8-2104 to H. Seymour, PI with T. Roeper, J. de Villiers, P. de Villiers & B. Z. Pearson, Project Manager.