The Longitudinal Development of African American English and its Role in School Achievement

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。本研究基于70名来自中低收入家庭的非裔美国青少年的独特纵向数据库，研究了非裔美国人英语（AAE）从童年到青春期的发展及其对读写能力习得和学业成绩的潜在影响。17年来，这些年轻人的语言、学习成绩和社会发展都被逐步记录下来，从婴儿期到童年和青春期。还对童年时期的母亲进行了采访，并对儿童在学校成长过程中的同龄人进行了采访，以便将这些年轻人的讲话与家人和朋友进行比较。在这一时期，家庭、学校和社会背景因素可能会影响AAE的发展和学业成绩，为了了解可能影响儿童和青少年时期白话语言变化的各种背景、社会和教育因素，我们也对这些因素进行了纵向记录。本项目完成了纵向研究最后阶段的数据收集，并对儿童和青少年时期的语言变化和变异进行了详细的分析。该研究考察了儿童和青少年使用AAE的不同变化路径，以及这些轨迹如何与选定的家庭、同伴和学校因素联系起来。语言变化的模式可能包括在童年和青少年时期稳定使用或不使用AAE，在童年和青少年时期使用AAE的减少，以及在小学早期一段时间的下降或稳定后，AAE变体在青少年早期加强的曲线轨迹。该研究进一步考察了童年和青春期在正式和非正式情境下AAE的使用是如何变化的。AAE的使用与青少年、家庭和学校特征相关，并根据阅读技能的发展和学校成就的其他方面进行检查。增长曲线法用于量化青年方言特定方面发展的变化模式，以确定其与识字发展和学习成绩的关系。这些发现应该引起关注非裔美国青年学业成功风险问题的家长、教育工作者和研究人员的极大兴趣。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). This research examines the development of African American English (AAE) from childhood through adolescence and its potential impact on literacy acquisition and school achievement based on a unique, longitudinal database of 70 African American adolescents from low-and middle-income families. For 17 years, the language, the school achievement, and the social development of these youth have been progressively documented, from infancy through childhood and adolescence. Interviews have also been conducted with mothers during childhood and with peers as children progress in school in order to compare the speech of these youth with family and friends. Family, school, and social background factors that may affect the development of AAE and school achievement during this period have also been documented longitudinally in order understand the variety of background social and educational factors that might influence vernacular language changes that occur through childhood and adolescence. This project completes the data collection for the final phase of the longitudinal study and undertakes the detailed analysis of language change and variation during childhood and adolescence. The study examines different paths of change in the use of AAE during childhood and adolescence and how these trajectories are linked to selected family, peer, and school factors. Patterns of language change may include the stable use or non-use of AAE through childhood and adolescence, the decline in the use of AAE over childhood and into adolescence, and a curvilinear trajectory in which AAE variants intensify in early adolescence after a period of decline or stability during the early elementary school years. The research further examines how the use of AAE shifts in formal and informal situational contexts through childhood and adolescence. The use of AAE is correlated with youth, family, and school characteristics, and examined in terms of the development of reading skills and other dimensions of school achievement. Growth curve methods are used to quantify patterns of change in the development of specific aspects of youths' vernacular dialect to determine their relation to literacy development and school achievement. The findings should be of great interest to parents, educators, and researchers concerned with risk issues related to the school success of African American youth.