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)提供资金的。本研究基于一个独特的、纵向的数据库，研究了非洲裔美国人英语从童年到青春期的发展及其对识字和学业成绩的潜在影响，该数据库涵盖了70名来自中低收入家庭的非洲裔美国青少年。17年来，从婴儿期到儿童期和青春期，这些年轻人的语言、学业成绩和社会发展都被逐步记录下来。还对儿童时期的母亲和儿童在学校取得进步的同龄人进行了访谈，以便将这些青年与家人和朋友的语言进行比较。可能影响AAE发展和这一时期学校成绩的家庭、学校和社会背景因素也被纵向记录下来，以便了解可能影响儿童和青少年时期发生的白话变化的各种背景、社会和教育因素。该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。这项研究考察了儿童和青春期AAE使用的不同变化路径，以及这些轨迹如何与选定的家庭、同伴和学校因素联系在一起。语言变化的模式可能包括在儿童和青春期稳定使用或不使用AAE，AAE在儿童和青春期的使用下降，以及AAE变体在小学早期经过一段时间的下降或稳定后在青春期早期增强的曲线轨迹。这项研究进一步考察了AAE的使用如何在儿童和青春期的正式和非正式情景中发生变化。AAE的使用与青少年、家庭和学校的特点有关，并从阅读技能的发展和学校成绩的其他方面进行了考察。使用增长曲线法量化青年方言特定方面的发展变化模式，以确定其与识字发展和学校成绩的关系。这一发现应该会引起家长、教育工作者和研究人员的极大兴趣，他们关注与非裔美国青年在学校取得成功有关的风险问题。

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.