African American Language
Language development from Infancy to Adulthood

A pioneering 20-year longitudinal study of 67 African American children that illuminates how and why language changes in childhood.

Mary Kohn (Author), Walt Wolfram (Author), Charlie Farrington (Author), Jennifer Renn (Author), Janneke Van Hofwegen (Author)

9781108835947, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 3 December 2020

325 pages
16 x 23.5 x 2 cm, 0.5 kg

From birth to early adulthood, all aspects of a child's life undergo enormous development and change, and language is no exception. This book documents the results of a pioneering longitudinal linguistic survey, which followed a cohort of sixty-seven African American children over the first twenty years of life, to examine language development through childhood. It offers the first opportunity to hear what it sounds like to grow up linguistically for a cohort of African American speakers, and provides fascinating insights into key linguistics issues, such as how physical growth influences pronunciation, how social factors influence language change, and the extent to which individuals modify their language use over time. By providing a lens into some of the most foundational questions about coming of age in African American Language, this study has implications for a wide range of disciplines, from speech pathology and education, to research on language acquisition and sociolinguistics.

List of Figures
List of Tables
Preface
Abbreviations
1. Coming of Age in African American Language
2. The Analysis of Sociolinguistic Change over the Lifespan
3. Profiles of Change: The Early Lifespan of African American Language
4. Vowel Variation across Time and Space
5. Caretaker's Influence on Vernacularity
6. The Influence of Peers on the Use of African American Language
7. Stylistic Variation in the Early AAL Lifespan
8. The Relationship of African American Language and Early Literacy Skills
9. A Longitudinal Study in Retrospect.

Subject Areas: Anthropology [JHM], Psycholinguistics [CFD], Sociolinguistics [CFB], Linguistics [CF]