The linguistic awareness/flexibility hypothesis posits that children with better metalinguistic knowledge have improved reading related academic performance. To date, no research has analyzed the effect of morphological or phonological interventions on improving metalinguistic competence for nonstandard dialect users. Sixteen typically developing…

Purpose: This research explored mechanisms of vowel variation in African American English by comparing 2 geographically distant groups of African American and White American English speakers for participation in the African American Shift and the Southern Vowel Shift. Method: Thirty-two male (African American: n = 16, White American controls: n =…

Most sociolinguistic studies rely on apparent time, cross-sectional methods to analyze language change. On the basis of apparent time data, sociolinguists have hypothesized that cultural processes of lifespan change create predictable cycles of linguistic behavior in which adolescents lead in the use of vernacular variants and advance sound change…

This dissertation evaluates the relationship between African American English and White Vernacular English as spoken in a small rural town in western North Carolina for consistencies in vowel production by group membership and for participation in the Southern Vowel Shift (SVS), a vowel rotation currently occurring in the Southern United States. A…

This study used data from questionnaires completed by teachers employed in North Carolina schools (N = 370) to determine if teachers felt that non-school-related or school-related factors served as barriers that limited the number of African American male children from participating in gifted programs. The majority of the teachers taught 3rd- to…

Examines several longstanding, isolated biracial sociolinguistic situations in the coastal and Appalachian regions of North Carolina: a core community of African Americans and two case studies of isolated speakers. Compares diagnostic phonological and morphosyntactic variables for speakers representing different generations of African American and…

Outlines a procedure for introducing Negro college pre-freshmen to such new cultural experiences as the opera. (JM)

The study of language in its social context and the role of language in society has developed over the past four decades into the field called sociolinguistics. In approaching language as a social activity, sociolinguists focus on discovering the specific patterns or social rules for talk; for example, they might examine how people manage their…