Chapter published in:
Three Streams of Generative Language Acquisition Research: Selected papers from the 7th Meeting of Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition – North America, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Edited by Tania Ionin and Matthew Rispoli
[Language Acquisition and Language Disorders 63] 2019
► pp. 59–82

Variability within varieties of English

Profiles of typicality and impairment

| Louisiana State University
In this article, I present findings from studies completed with children who speak nonmainstream dialects of English, including African American English as spoken in LA, MI, and the Gullah/Geechee Corridor of SC and Southern White English as spoken in rural LA by children with and without Cajun influence. Using these studies, I describe some of the ways in which typically developing child speakers of various nonmainstream dialects differ from each other and some of the ways in which nonmainstream English-speaking children with specific language impairment differ from their same dialect-speaking, typically developing peers. I conclude that profiles of typicality and impairment are not the same – the latter contributes a more restricted range of variation than the former.
Keywords: dialects, linguistic variation, typical development, child language impairment
Published online: 15 April 2019
https://doi.org/10.1075/lald.63.04oet
References

References

Alim, H. S.
(2004) You know my steez: An ethnographic and sociolinguistic study of styleshifting in a Black American speech community. Durham: Duke University Press. Google Scholar
Alim, H. S.
(2015) Hip hop nation language: Localization and globalization. In S. Lanehart (Ed.). The Oxford handbook of African American English (pp.850–862). Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Arndt, K. B., & Schuele, C. M.
(2012) Production of infinitival complements by children with specific language impairment. Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics, 26, 1–17. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Berry, J. R., & Oetting, J. B.
(2017) Use of copula and auxiliary BE by African American children with Gullah/Geechee heritage. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 60, 2557–2568. Crossref.Google Scholar
Cleveland, L. H., & Oetting, J. B.
(2013) Verbal -s marking by dialect and clinical status. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 22, 604–614. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Dickinson, D. K., McCabe, A., & Sprague, K.
(2003) Teacher rating of oral language and literacy development (TROLL): Individualizing early literacy instruction with a standards-based rating tool. The Reading Teacher, 56, 554–569.Google Scholar
Ehrler, D. J., & McGhee, R. L.
(2008) Primary test of nonverbal intelligence. Austin, TX: Pro-Ed.Google Scholar
Garrity, A. W., & Oetting, J. B.
(2010) Auxiliary BE production by AAE-speaking children with and without specific language impairment. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 53, 1307–1320. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Goldman, R., & Fristoe, M.
(2000) Goldman-Fristoe Test of articulation 2 (2nd ed.). Circle Pines, MN: American Guidance Services.Google Scholar
Gatlin, B., & Wanzek, J.
(2015) Relations among children's use of dialect and literacy skills: A meta-analysis. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 58, 1306–1318. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Green, L.
(2002) African-American English: A linguistic introduction. Cambridge: CUP. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Hadley, P. A.
(1998) Language sampling protocols for eliciting text-level discourse. Language, Speech, Hearing Services in Schools, 29, 132–147. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Heilmann, J. J., Miller, J. F., & Nockerts, A.
(2010) Using language sample databases. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 41, 84–95. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Horton, R., & Apel, K.
(2014) Examining the use of spoken dialect indices with African American children in the southern United States. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 23, 448–460. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Jackson, J., Ramos, E., Hall, F., Coles, D., Seymour, H., Dickey, M… & Hollebrandse, B.
(2011) The be taggin, don’t they?: The acquisition of invariant be. In A. Stringfellow, D. Cahana-Amitay, E. Hughes, & A. Zukowski (Eds.), Proceedings of the 20th annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (pp.364–373). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Lee, R., & Oetting, J. B.
(2014) Zero marking of past tense in child African American English. Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups: SIG 1 Language Learning and Education, 21, 173–181.Google Scholar
Leonard, L.
(2014) Children with specific language impairment. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Miller, K.
(2014) Assessing plural morphology in children acquiring /s/-leniting dialects of Spanish. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 45, 173–184. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Miller, K., & Schmitt, C.
(2010) Effects of variable input in the acquisition of plural in two dialects of Spanish. Lingua, 120, 1178–1193. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Morgan, P. L., Farkas, G., Hillemeier, M. M., Mattison, R., Maczuga, S. Li, H., & Cook, M.
(2015) Minorities are disproportionately underrepresented in special education: Longitudinal evidence across five disability conditions. Educational Researcher, 44, 278–292. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Morgan, P. L., Hammer, C. S., Farkas, G., Hillemeier, M. M., Maczuga, S., Cook, M., & Morano, S.
(2016) Who receives speech/language services by 5 years of age in the United States? American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 25, 183–199. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Newkirk-Turner, B. L., Oetting, J. B., & Stockman, I. J.
(2014) BE, DO, and modal auxiliaries of three-year-old African American English speakers. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 57, 1383–1393. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2016) Development of auxiliaries by young children learning African American English. Language, Speech, Hearing Services in Schools, 47, 209–224. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Oetting, J. B., & Garrity, A.W.
(2006) Variation within dialects: A case of Cajun/Creole influence within child SAAE and SWE. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 49, 16–26. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Oetting, J. B., & McDonald, J.
(2001) Nonmainstream dialect use and specific language impairment. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 44, 207–223. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2002) Methods for characterizing participants’ nonmainstream dialect use within studies of child language. Journal of Speech Language, and Hearing Research, 45, 505–518. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Oetting, J. B., McDonald, J., Seidel, C., & Hegarty, M.
(2016) Sentence recall by children with SLI across two nonmainstream dialects of English. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 59, 83–54. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Oetting, J. B., & Newkirk, B. L.
(2008) Subject relatives by children with and without SLI across different dialects of English. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 22, 111–125. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2011) Children’s relative clause markers in two nonmainstream dialects of English. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 25, 725–740. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Oetting, J. B., Newkirk, B. L., Hartfield, L. R., Wynn, C. G., Pruitt, S. L., & Garrity, A.W.
(2010) Index of productive syntax for children who speak African American English. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 41, 328–339. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Oetting, J. B., & Pruitt, S. L.
(2005) Use of Southern African American English across groups. International Journal of Multicultural Communication Disorders, 3, 136–144.Google Scholar
Pearson, B. Z., Jackson, J. E., & Wu, H.
(2014) Seeking a valid gold standard for an innovative, dialect-neutral language test. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 57, 495–508. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Pruitt, S. L., Garrity, A.W., & Oetting, J. B.
(2010) Family history of speech and language impairment in African American children: Implications for assessment. Topics in Language Disorders, 30, 154–164. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Pruitt, S. L., & Oetting, J. B.
(2009) Past tense marking by African American English-speaking children reared in poverty. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 52, 2–15. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Pruitt, S. L., Oetting, J. B., & Hegarty, M.
(2011) Passive participle marking by African American English-speaking children reared in poverty. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 54, 598–607. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Rice, M. L.
(2009) How different is disordered language? In J. Colombo, P. McCardle, & L. Freund (Eds.), Infant pathways to language: Methods, models, and research directions (pp.65–82). New York, NY: Psychology Press.Google Scholar
(2013) Language growth and genetics of specific language impairment. International Journal of Speech Language Pathology, 15, 223–233. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Rivière, A. M., & Oetting, J. B. & Roy, J.
(2018) Effects of specific language impairment on a contrastive dialect structure: The case of infinitival TO across different nonmainstream dialects of English. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 61, 1989–2001. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Ross, S., Oetting, J. B., & Stapleton, B.
(2004) Preterite Had+Ved: A developmental narrative discourse marker in AAE. American Speech, 79, 167–193. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Roy, J., Oetting, J. B., & Moland, C.
(2013) Linguistic constraints on children’s overt marking of BE by dialect and age. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 56, 933–944. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Schuele, C. M., & Dykes, J. C.
(2005) Complex syntax acquisition: A longitudinal case study of a child with specific language impairment. Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics, 19, 295–318. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Seymour, H., Bland-Stewart, L., & Green, L.
(1998) Difference versus deficit in child African American English. Language, Speech, Hearing Services in Schools, 29, 96–108. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Seymour, H. N., Roeper, T., & de Villiers, J. G.
(2003) Diagnostic evaluation of language variation screening test. San Antonio, TX: The Psychological Corporation.Google Scholar
(2005) Diagnostic evaluation of language variation: Norm-referenced test. San Antonio, TX: The Psychological Corporation.Google Scholar
Tomblin, J. B., Records, N. L., Buckwalter, P., Zhang, X., Smith, E., & O’Brien, M.
(1997) Prevalence of specific language impairment in kindergarten children. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 40, 1245–1260. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Van Hofwegen, J., & Wolfram, W.
(2010) Coming of age in African American English: A longitudinal study. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 14, 27–52. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
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. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Yang, C.
(2002) Knowledge and learning in natural language. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by other publications

McDonald, Janet L. & Janna B. Oetting
2019. Nonword Repetition Across Two Dialects of English: Effects of Specific Language Impairment and Nonmainstream Form Density. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 62:5 ► pp. 1381 ff. Crossref logo
Oetting, Janna B., Jessica R. Berry, Kyomi D. Gregory, Andrew M. Rivière & Janet McDonald
2019. Specific Language Impairment in African American English and Southern White English: Measures of Tense and Agreement With Dialect-Informed Probes and Strategic Scoring. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 62:9 ► pp. 3443 ff. Crossref logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 04 january 2021. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.