Pragmatic Language of African American Children and Adolescents a Systematic Synthesis of the Literature

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Top Lang Disorders Vol. 35, No. 1, pp. 8–45 Copyright c 2015 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved. Pragmatic Language of African American Children and Adolescents A Systematic Synthesis of the Literature

Yvette D. Hyter, Kenyatta O. Rivers, and Glenda DeJarnette

Purpose: A systematic review and synthesis was performed on published articles and dissertations produced between 1970 and 2013 that focused on selected pragmatic language behaviors of African American children and adolescents. Methods: Electronic databases and hand searches of articles located in the databases were used to identify the published articles and dissertations. Each article or dissertation was reviewed by at least 2 of the authors to determine whether it met the criteria for inclusion in this study. Selected observations of the documents that met criteria for inclusion were recorded on the Primary Research Appraisal Tool (PRAT; DeJarnette, Hyter, & Rivers, 2012), a data gathering and analysis framework developed by the authors specifically for this systematic synthesis. Results: The literature search resulted in 92 research articles and dissertations, 37 of which were eliminated because they did not meet all of the inclusion criteria. The documents that met our inclusion criteria focused primarily on the structure and/or content of narrative discourse rather than speech acts, other forms of discourse (e.g., conversation, expository), and presupposition/perspective taking skills. Six major themes identified in the major findings are used to summarize studies reviewed for this systematic synthesis. Conclusions: We (a) explain the current state of knowledge about African American pragmatic language behaviors, (b) explain major findings and implications of the extant literature in this topical area and how it may inform speech–language pathology practice, and (c) identify directions for future research on pragmatic language of African American children and adolescents. Key words: African American, communication functions, discourse, pragmatic language, presupposition, speech acts, systematic review and synthesis, theory of mind

RAGMATICS is an area of international P interest (Archer, Aijmer, & Wich- mann, 2012), which is studied in various Author Affiliations: Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo (Dr Hyter); Department of Supplemental digital content is available for this ar- Communication Sciences and Disorders, University ticle. Direct URL citation appears in the printed text of Central Florida, Orlando (Dr Rivers); and and is provided in the HTML and PDF versions of Department of Communication Disorders, this article on the journal’s Web site (www.topicsin Southern Connecticut State University, New Haven languagedisorders.com). (Dr DeJarnette). Corresponding Author: Yvette D. Hyter, PhD, CCC- Yvette D. Hyter and Kenyatta O. Rivers have no finan- SLP, Western Michigan University, 1903 W. Michigan cial or nonfinancial relationships to disclose. Glenda Ave, Kalamazoo, MI 49008-5355 (yvette.hyter@wmich. DeJarnette discloses that she has received a faculty edu and [email protected]). research grant from the Connecticut State University American Association of University Professors. DOI: 10.1097/TLD.0000000000000043 8

disciplines, including speech–language ond component is the regulation and struc- pathology, anthropology, linguistics, neu- ture of discourse (such as conversation, oral roscience, philosophy of language, and and written narratives, expository, and class- sociology (Huang, 2012; Perkins, 2007; Xie room discourse), which includes turn taking & House, 2009). Scholars in each of these and repair strategies (Spinelli & Ripich, 1985; disciplines approach pragmatics from a Stockman, Karasinski, & Guillory, 2008). The different theoretical framework, resulting third component of pragmatics is presuppo- in varied conceptualizations of pragmatics. sition. It refers to making inferences about In general, however, pragmatics can be what communication partners know, and it described as a vast content area that consti- includes register switching, dialect shifts, and tutes a component of social communication code switching (Atlas, 2004; Roth & Spekman, (Adams, Baxendale, Lloyd, & Aldred, 2005; 1984a, 1984b). Presupposition also requires Coggins, Timler, & Olswang, 2007; Hyter, social cognitive skills, such as perspective tak- 2007; Olswang, Coggins, & Timler, 2001). ing and theory of mind (Bates, 1976a, 1976b; According to Coggins et al. (2007), social de Villiers, 2004; Prutting & Kirchner, 1987). communication is the ability to use language Nonlinguistic aspects of pragmatics pro- effectively to influence others and to inter- vide a bridge between language and con- pret situations. Social communication is not text in that gestures and body movements, only supported by pragmatics but also by so- facial expressions, and prosody provide in- cial cognitive skills and executive functioning formation about a communicator’s intentions (EF; Olswang et al., 2001; Timler, 2008), affect (Bates, 1976a, 1976b; Kelly, 2001). These regulation (the reciprocal element of EF), and serve to facilitate the communication part- working memory, which serves as the glue ner’s comprehension (Goldin-Meadow, 1999; holding the other components of social com- McNeill, 1996, 2005). Cognitive aspects of munication together (Hyter, 2012; Hyter & pragmatics focus on the cognitive skills (e.g., Sloane, 2013). Perkins (2007) stressed the im- implicature, inference or intention reading, portance of approaches to pragmatics focus- perspective taking, and theory of mind) ing, not only on the behaviors of individuals, needed to interpret and comprehend what is but also on “underlying factors” (e.g., social– said in a given context (Bara, 2010; Perkins, cultural, cognitive, and contextual) that moti- 2007; Schmid, 2012; Sperber & Wilson, 2002, vate those behaviors (p. 32). 2005). One’s social cultural history and in- We use a holistic definition of pragmatics fluences make up the macrolevel contexts in this article. This holistic definition is what for communicative practices, as well as de- Huang (2012, p. 8) calls a “continental view.” termine the roles or status of interlocutors It includes linguistic, nonlinguistic, and cog- (Hyter, 2007; Rivers, Hyter, & DeJarnette, nitive aspects of communication, as well as 2012; Sperber & Wilson, 2002, 2005). macrolevel contexts (e.g., community, eco- Pragmatic language is important for every logical, global, economic, political, or ideo- aspect of human interaction. It is important logical environments) that influence commu- for communicating effectively in diverse nicative behaviors (Hyter, 2007, 2014; van situational contexts (Levinson, 1983), as Wormer & Besthorn, 2010). well as with a range of communication Linguistic aspects of pragmatics refer to partners (Hyter, 2007). As an aspect of the use of language to (1) communicate and social communication (Hyter, 2012; Olswang (2) produce and regulate discourse in ways et al., 2001), pragmatics plays a role in helping that are effective on the basis of the require- communicators to see the world from others’ ments of the communicative endeavor (de perspectives (Epley & Caruso, 2009) and to Villiers, 2004). This aspect of pragmatics in- regulate social interaction (Weiner & Schnei- cludes three components, the first of which der, 2002). Positive social interactions facili- is speech acts or the communication of in- tate prosocial behaviors, such as developing tentions (Austin, 1962; Searle, 1969). The sec- and maintaining interpersonal relationships

(Brinton, Robinson, & Fujiki, 2004). In addi- Washington, 1994, 1995, 2002; Dandy, 1991; tion, pragmatics helps communicators make Green, 2002, 2003; Newkirk-Turner, Oetting, sense of social cues (Weiner, 2004) and can & Stockman, 2014; Oetting et al., 2010; play a role in academic outcomes (Boudreau, Roy, Oetting, & Moland, 2013; Seymour & 2008; Donahue, 1985; Eder, 1982; O’Neill, Roeper, 1999; Smitherman, 1994; Stockman, 2014). Presupposition and inferring others’ 2010; Stockman, Guillory, Seibert, & Boult, intentions, both components of pragmatic 2013; Stockman & Vaughn-Cook, 1992; Van language, facilitate comprehension of oral Hofwegen & Wolfram, 2010). In contrast, and written discourse, as well as figura- there has been limited research regarding the tive language (Troia, 2011). Multiple areas pragmatic components of AAE. of cognition support pragmatic language One reason for this may be that, to date, (Hyter, 2012; Olswang et al., 2001; Perkins, there has not been a unifying framework 2007), and cognitive impairments can affect for examining the pragmatic language of pragmatic functioning (Perkins, 2007). African American children and adolescents In addition, cultural practices are man- (DeJarnette et al., 2015; Hwa-Froelich, Kasam- ifested through pragmatics (Hyter, 2007; bira, & Moleski, 2007; Rivers et al., 2012). As a Rivers et al., 2012). Culture can be defined consequence, much of the published research as the assumptions, values, belief systems, on this population consists of small data sets and worldviews that guide daily practice of (Hwa-Froelich et al., 2007), using inconsis- groups of people with a shared history of tent coding systems that might not reveal rel- problem solving (Lustig & Koester, 2012; evant pragmatic features (DeJarnette et al., Ting-Toomey, 1999). It is an essential gen- 2015), and anecdotal accounts of language erator of pragmatic language, as culture use (Battle, 1996; Bliss & McCabe, 2006, 2008; determines how one interprets the contexts Collins, 1985; Gee, 1989a; Wyatt, 1995). in which communicative interactions occur, Knowledge of African American pragmatic how one changes his or her own behavior on language is particularly important for speech– the basis of his or her interpretation of the language pathologists and educators, because communicative context, and how one com- many African American children and adoles- municates using linguistic, paralinguistic, and cents may exhibit pragmatic language behav- nonlinguistic communicative behaviors (see iors that are culturally unique or different DeJarnette, Rivers, & Hyter, 2015). Linguistic than their Euro American (EA) counterparts culture, which includes the attitudes, beliefs, (Bliss & McCabe, 2008; DeJarnette et al., 2015; and assumptions that groups of people have Hwa-Froelich, Kasambira, & Moleski, 2007; about their own group’s and other groups’ Rivers et al., 2012). Unfortunately, in this 21st ways of using language (Schiffman, 1996), century, the pragmatic language of African also influences beliefs and perceptions of American children and adolescents is still not language variations. completely understood (Green, 2002; Rivers Pragmatic elements play a crucial role et al., 2012). Such problems can be associ- in the daily lives of all communicators. ated with both over- and under-referrals for This factor motivates our advocacy for speech–language services, as well as negative more focused study of pragmatic language perceptions of the communicative abilities of behaviors of African American children and African American children and adolescents adolescents. Although the language devel- (Hwa-Froelich et al., 2004; Kramer, Rivers, & opment of African American children and Ratusnik, 2000; Rivers et al., 2012). adolescents has been the focus of research Based on our concerns about gaps in the for decades, at least since the late 1960s, most knowledge base regarding the pragmatic lan- research has concentrated on the structure guage of African American children and ado- (phonology, morphology, and syntax) and lescents, we decided to conduct a systematic meaning (semantics) of African American and synthesized review of the literature so English (AAE; e.g., the work of Craig & that clinicians, educators, and others will

be better equipped to distinguish language speech–language pathology emerged during differences and language disorders in class- the late 1960s, throughout the 1970s, and into rooms and other settings. We are aware of the 1980s (e.g., Austin, 1962; Bates, 1976a, no previous systematic and synthesized re- 1976b; Prutting & Kirchner, 1983, 1987; views of the literature on this topic. A search Searle, 1969; Wetherby & Prutting, 1984). of the Cochrane Collaboration systematic re- In the 1970s, the field of speech–language view database in August 2014 did not reveal pathology was in the midst of a paradigm any published systematic reviews or meta- shift from a focus on language structure and analyses on the pragmatic language of African meaning to an increasing focus on language American children and adolescents. Baker and functions. Consequently, the timeframe for McLeod (2011) discussed the importance of the literature search for this study was set to incorporating the methodological rigor and start at 1970, because much of the 43-year pe- transparency of systematic reviews with the riod between 1970 and 2013 (i.e., from 1975 comprehensive coverage offered by narrative to 2000) is what Duchan (2011) referred to reviews or syntheses. That was our goal. as the “pragmatic revolution” in the field of Accordingly, the purpose of this article speech–language pathology. This is the pe- was to review and synthesize peer-reviewed riod when the cultural and situational con- articles and dissertations produced between texts of communication and language devel- 1970 and 2013 regarding the pragmatic lan- opment began to be explored more regularly guage of African American children and ado- in research investigations and discussions. lescents. The two-part goal was (1) to identify literature that has contributed to the knowl- The literature search edge base regarding pragmatic language of An extensive search of the extant litera- African American children and adolescents ture produced between 1970 and 2013 was and (2) to describe information that emerged conducted using five electronic databases and from this literature that might inform practice eight journals. The databases were SCOPUS, and future research in this area. EBSCOhost, ProQuest, Google Scholar, and Dissertation Abstracts, each of which in- METHODS cluded multiple titles. In SCOPUS, we searched the health sciences, social sciences, A modified systematic review method was and humanities subject areas, which included used for including and excluding articles and more than 12,000 titles. In EBSCOhost, we dissertations and for extracting and coding searched the education, health and medicine, data from each of the included documents so literature and criticism, philosophy, psychol- that they could be synthesized. Although typi- ogy, and social sciences categories. In Pro- cal systematic reviews of the literature include Quest, we searched the general database, only peer-reviewed articles published in jour- which includes 53 ProQuest databases, along nals, we decided to include dissertations as with the literature collections, political sci- viable data because we wanted to include any ences, which included more than 150 titles empirical studies that could illuminate this un- from scholarly journals, and social sciences, derresearched topic. which had more than 1,600 scholarly journals. These databases were selected because Selecting primary research of their expansive reach across scholarly disciplines and their likelihood of containing Defining the time period studies on the pragmatic language abilities of Although the concept of pragmatics dates African American children and adolescents. back to the 1930s (Archer et al., 2012; Huang, Beyond these databases, journals exam- 2007; Morris, 1938), much of the seminal ined were the American Journal of Speech- work in the area of pragmatic language in Language Pathology; Language, Speech, and

Hearing Services in Schools; Journal of American participants, because we wanted Speech, Language, and Hearing Research; to make sure we did not exclude studies Journal of Black Studies; Topics in Lan- that identified relevant outcomes for African guage Disorders; Communication Disorders American children and adolescents although Quarterly; ECHO (the publication of the Na- they may have included other ethnic and tional Black Association of Speech-Language racial groups in the participant pool. Confer- and Hearing); and the Journal of Pragmatics. ence presentations, book chapters, and mas- It should be noted that although the exten- ter’s theses were excluded from these data as sive search was conducted through 2013, no were articles that were published in languages additional studies have appeared in the extant other than English and that included popula- literature for 2014, as the authors conducted a tions located outside of the United States. “good faith measure” search of the literature, dissertation abstracts, and Cochran Collabora- Data coding and analysis tion database in August 2014. The authors developed a tool, the Primary Selected key words used to guide the Research Appraisal Tool (PRAT; DeJarnette, literature search were based on the way Hyter, & Rivers, 2012; see Supplemental we conceptualized pragmatics. These words, Digital Content, available at: http://links.lww employed individually and in combination, .com/TLD/A40), which served as a frame- were “African American,” “Black,” “dialect work for organizing our observations of the shifting,” “discourse,” “discourse regulation,” data. Each article and dissertation examined “intention reading,” “intentions,” “narrative,” in this study was coded using the PRAT. “conversation,” “turn taking,” “repair,” “ex- Coding consisted of reviewing each article pository,” “communication functions,” “com- and dissertation and then marking “yes” or munication intentions,” “persons of color,” “no” to indicate the presence or absence of “perspective taking,” “pragmatics,” “presup- a particular component. We wrote in each position,” “theory of mind,” “social cogni- article and dissertation’s research question(s) tion,” “social communication,” and “speech and/or purpose, method of data collection, acts.” In addition to our search of the elec- findings, and implications of those findings tronic databases, a hand search of the refer- in the appropriate sections at the end of the ences in the obtained articles was also con- PRAT. ducted. Also, during five presentations about Coding reliability was established in four this content area (at national conferences of phases. First, each of the authors coded two the American Speech-Language-Hearing Asso- articles in the data set. This was followed by ciation (Hyter, Rivers, & DeJarnette, 2010b, a discussion about our coding decisions, so 2012b) and the National Black Association for we could calibrate our coding responses. Sec- Speech-Language-Hearing [NBASLH] (Hyter, ond, each author coded one-third (i.e., 30– Rivers, & DeJarnette, 2010a, 2012a, 2013), the 31 of 92) of the articles and dissertations in authors polled audience members who iden- the data set. This second round of coding was tified additional published literature that was used to determine which articles matched the considered for this review. inclusion criteria and which ones did not. Third, after eliminating articles that did not Inclusion and exclusion criteria match the inclusion criteria, the first author Inclusion criteria for this study were peer- recoded 100% of the remaining articles us- reviewed, data-based articles and dissertations ing calibration standards set in the first phase. that (1) were published or conducted, respec- Fourth, a random sampling of 10% of the arti- tively, during or after 1970 and (2) whose par- cles in the data set was reviewed and indepen- ticipant pool included at least 30% African dently coded by each of the coauthors using American children or adolescents. We se- the PRAT. The total number of agreements of lected 30% as the cutoff number for African each item on the PRAT was divided by the

total number of agreement opportunities1 to of the inclusion criteria. Specifically, 16 of the acquire an interrater agreement of 84%. articles were theoretical or a review of the To achieve the second, more qualitative literature rather than a designed study (Ball, goal of this systematic synthesis, we used an 2002; Barnitz, 1994; Battle, 1996; Bliss & inductive thematic analysis approach to de- McCabe, 2006, 2008; Collins, 1985; deVilliars, termine themes that emerged from purpose 2004; Gee, 1989a; Gutierrez-Clellen & Quinn, statements, major findings, and implications 1993; Hyter, 2007; Johnson, 1995; McCabe, of research findings presented in the cor- 1997; Nichols, 1989; Stadler & Ward, 2005; pus (Braun & Clarke, 2006; Elo & Kyngas, Washington, 2001; Wyatt, 1995). One doc- 2008; Harwood & Garry, 2003; Neuman, ument (Hester & Langdon, 2008) was a pre- 2006; Punch, 2014). First, research purpose sentation rather than an article; two (Finger, statements were extracted from each arti- 2007; Renn, 2007) were a master’s thesis cle and dissertation and listed in a word rather than a dissertation, and four (Craig & document. Next, the “manifest” (i.e., overtly Washington, 1994, 1995, 2002; Robinson, stated) content of each statement was identi- 1992) focused on language structure rather fied (Elo & Kyngas, 2008, p. 109). In other than language use, although discourse words, in the process of coding the state- was used to collect the samples for these ments, the coder is asking, “What is this studies. purpose statement about?” (Braun & Clarke, Ten documents either did not meet the 30% 2006; Dey, 1993). Third, the manifest content criteria of African American participants or extracted from each purpose statement was did not provide sufficient information to de- assigned a code. Codes described the basic termine whether 30% of the subjects were unit of meaning inherent in the manifest con- African American (Fuste-Hermann, Silliman, tent of the research question (Braun & Clark, Bahr, Fasnacht, & Federico, 2006; Heath, 2006). Finally, themes were constructed from 1982; Heilmann, Miller, & Nockerts, 2010; the codes. Themes comprise collections of Hill & Coufal, 2005; Howes, Sanders, & Lee, codes, and they represent the core meaning 2008; Hyter, 2003; Hyter, Rogers-Adkinson, inherent within the codes (Braun & Clarke, Self, Friederich-Simmons, & Jantz, 2001; Lee, 2006; Clarke & Braun, 2013; Neuman, 2006; 2006; McCabe & Rosenthal Rollins, 1994; Punch, 2014). Michaels, 1981); one (Myers, Rana, & Harris, 1979) was an annotated bibliography rather RESULTS than a peer-reviewed article or dissertation; one (Labov & Waletzky, 1967) was published Search of the literature before 1970; and two focused on a college level or adult population (Norment, 1995; Sz- The initial literature search yielded 92 para & Wylie, 2007). The final corpus of 55 articles and dissertations published between documents comprised 39 (71%) articles and 1970 and 2013 that focused on some aspect 16 (29%) dissertations. Table 1 summarizes of pragmatic language and reported at least the key findings for these 55 investigations. 30% of the participant pool as being children and/or adolescents who are African Ameri- Research purposes can. Of these 92 articles and dissertations, 37 Of the 55 articles and dissertations re- were eliminated because they did not meet all viewed, 36 (65%) included key research questions, but 100% of the documents included a purpose statement. The reasons scholars provided for investigating the pragmatic language 1Opportunities for agreement included written com- ments as well as checked boxes; thus, for each rater, a of African American children, and adolescents total of 294 responses were examined for level of agree- can be divided both thematically and tempo- ment with all other raters. rally into four groups.

Copyright © 2015 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. Unauthorized reproduction of this article is prohibited. 14 TOPICS IN LANGUAGE DISORDERS/JANUARY–MARCH 2015 ) continues ( article can be used to differentiate normal and impaired narration. Topic association does not indicate language impairment. discourse is affected by cultural preferences and years of schooling; preference for organizational patterns can be viewed as an obstacle or a resource for successful literacy-related experiences. needs to be included in the writing curriculum; need to broaden what is valued in narrative discourse. in language; interactive communication showed high degrees of interpersonal involvement during conversation—a potential conflict with school discourse; AAE features do not interfere with early language learning. Guidelines presented in this Organization of expository Broader array of diverse voices AA children are not deficient processing in both topic-centered and topic-associated narratives included word retrieval deficits, disfluencies, echolalia, and perseveration. reported strong preference for using vernacular-based patterns in academic writing, as they got older, although other groups preferred vernacular-based organizational patterns in informal oral exposition. discourse strategies used; two key guiding principles for evaluating AAE adolescent speakers (a) AAE literacy practices need to be accepted, (b) devices reflecting oral tradition of AAE should be considered in curricula. dominant factor in children’s early language; interactive patterns of language functions reflected culture’s style of communication; changes in the relations and functions influenced the rate of increased MLU. African American adolescents Culturally influenced AAE features were not a Procedures Major Findings Implications of Findings Data-Gathering written artifacts written artifacts; discussions; surveys Mother–child interactions Participant observation; Elicited narratives Problems with linguistic Field notes; observations; Video/audio recording; Descriptive group comparison Descriptive Descriptive Descriptive Nonexperimental: Nonexperimental: Nonexperimental: Nonexperimental: Preexperimental: Static Participant 4 Impaired language 2 School age Infants (18– 24 months) Characteristics Research Design 45 M; 55 F Typical language School age Some M; Some F 4 Typical language; 2 Preschool; 2M;2F Typical language School Age Low SES 2M;1F Typical language Low SES Major Construct Investigated Discourse: Expository 102 (44%) Discourse: Narrative 8 (100%) Discourse: Expository 4 (100%) Speech acts 3 (100%) and characterize preferred patterns for organizing experiences among AA adolescents. styles of AA speakers and to distinguish narrative deficits from impaired language processing. how some AAE speakers have successfully used their language abilities within the context of expository writing; to share principles that have been used to guide Dr. Ball’s work with linguistically diverse students description of development of language in Black children. To describe the narrative To provide evidence and a Selected characteristics of analyzed articles and dissertations McCabe (1999) Dissertation Covington, and Articles and Dissertations Comprising Corpus1. Ball (1992) To investigate Research Purpose 2. Ball (1996) To share information on 3. Blake (1984) 4. Bliss, Table 1.

Copyright © 2015 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. Unauthorized reproduction of this article is prohibited. Pragmatic Language of African American Children 15 ) continues ( reliably examined in AAE and GAE speakers; 4- and 5-year-olds mastered fewer critical narrative features than 6-year-olds. AAE dialect density is not a predictor of narrative organizational style. Topic association is not less well developed than topic centered; high point analysis cannot be applied to topic associative style. separated from the storyteller, storytelling, event, and social relationships; emphasis on narrative as text reduces the creative process of narrative development to a supporting role. issues have implications for future research designs; qualitative and quantitative analyses of this study showed several patterns of language use. Narrative features can be Narratives are objectified and This study’s methodological showed equivalent and significant development in narrative skills between ages 4 and 6 years; no significant correlation between overall narrative score and age or AAE use; children mastered narrative features by 7–8 years; no correlation found between t-units for background information and AAE density. school to narrative as text; this socialization may begin early and constitute a major component of educational frameworks; schools may emphasize narrative as text and diminish the importance of narrative as performance. macrofunctions identified; methodological issues are transcription of data (must include contextual information) and developmentofcoding system (need to develop a functional coding system that emerges from the data). Children may be socialized in 22 micro- and 5 AAE and GAE speakers Procedures Major Findings Implications of Findings ) Data-Gathering telling conversation and play Assessment scores Oral and written story Language samples in Picture elicited narrative; Continued Descriptive Descriptive experimental: Within-subjects design Nonexperimental: Predictive Nonexperimental: Nonexperimental: Study 1: True Study 2: Participant kindergarten 21 (100%) Characteristics Research Design M; F equally divided Preschool and Low SES 4M;4F Preschool age Low SES Preschool study 2: School age Low SES Major Construct Investigated Discourse: Narrative 100 (97%) Speech acts 8 (100%) icus:artv Study1:78(68%) Discourse:Narrative narrative development by discussing the use of two different narrative styles, narratives as text, and narratives as performance. the meaning and forms acquisition to the functional language use patterns among 3- and 4.5-year-old Black working class children, including an analysis of emerging language functions across both age groups. conducted. Study 1 examined how young AAE speakers, in comparison to young GAE speakers aged 4–6 years organized a narrative during a picture-supported task. Study 2 was a comparison of narrative organization styles of high and low AAE dialect density speakers. To generate insights about To extend the analysis of Two studies were Selected characteristics of analyzed articles and dissertations ( and Champion (2003) (1988) Dissertation Dissertation Articles and Dissertations Comprising Corpus5. Bloome, Katz, Research Purpose 6. Bridgeforth 7. Burns (2004) Table 1.

Copyright © 2015 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. Unauthorized reproduction of this article is prohibited. 16 TOPICS IN LANGUAGE DISORDERS/JANUARY–MARCH 2015 ) continues ( narrative analysis; should include both personal and fictional content; narrative abilities may not generalize across narrative genres; specific features of narratives may be associated with ethnic/cultural background or learning disability. around moral themes; some AA speakers use prosody as contextual links to the structure of narrative; important to be aware of prosodic patterns; Story Grammar and High Point can be applied to narratives of AAE speakers; emotional themes may produce more narratives. Apply multiple approaches to Some narratives constructed Caucasian participants with and without learning disabilities produced personal and fictional narratives that were comparable on most measures of narrative length, structural organization, and coherence. The two groups differed with respect to their use of goal-directed episodic structures. Students with learning disability tended to recount events from personal experience in the form of action sequences rather than goal-directed structures. In their fictional narratives, these students produced more goal-directed episodes than their typically achieving peers. narratives than topic-associated narratives produced; produced a range of narrative structures; higher frequency of complete and complex structures than any others from Story Grammar Analysis; higher frequency of classic structure than any other in High Point Analysis African American and More topic-centered Procedures Major Findings Implications of Findings ) Data-Gathering narratives in conversation toys and story prompts Elicited personal Continued group comparison Preexperimental: Static Ethnographic Elicited narratives form Participant disability Characteristics Research Design 41 M; 41 F 41 had learning School age Low SES 5M;10F Typical language School age Low SES Major Construct Investigated Discourse: Narratives 82 (41%) Discourse: Narratives 15 (100%) personal and fictional narratives of culturally/ethnically diverse students with and without learning disabilities production of narratives of AAE-speaking children To investigate the Selected characteristics of analyzed articles and dissertations ( (1995) Dissertation Articles and Dissertations Comprising Corpus8. Celinska (2009) This study analyzed Research Purpose 9. Champion Table 1.

Copyright © 2015 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. Unauthorized reproduction of this article is prohibited. Pragmatic Language of African American Children 17 ) continues ( background may influence narrative structures, which are valued in their community; AA children do not produce only one structure; AA children produce more topic- centered than topic- associating narratives. outcomes. evaluate narrative structure using a number of different conceptual frameworks to ensure child’s competency is not underestimated better predictor of reading than whether or not a child uses AAE. Dialect shifting shows emerging pragmatic awareness that language used at home may not be the language expected at school. awareness may contribute to stronger literacy Types of prompts and cultural Important for researchers to Overall linguistic skill is a Explicit instruction in dialect of narrative structures—in addition to high point found (1) moral centered, (b) performative, (c) dispute years of age are capable of producing complex narratives; use higher level narrative structures routinely used morphosyntactic AAE forms during oral narrative; 8 did not; preschoolers who frequently used AAE demonstrated stronger emergent literacy skills. No evidence that students using AAE with greater frequency would have more difficulty learning early literacy skills. Preschoolers did not respond to implicit cues regarding language; some preschoolers’ dialect shift. Students who used AAE with greatest frequency performed best on sentence imitation. Children can produce a range AA children between 6 and 10 Many (55) of the children Procedures Major Findings Implications of Findings ) Data-Gathering conversation conversation and play; story prompts book-elicited narratives; language sampling Elicited narratives in Elicited narratives from Assessment scores; Continued group posttest design Descriptive Predictive Preexperimental: One Nonexperimental: Nonexperimental: Participant Characteristics Research Design 5M;10F Typical language Typical language School age Typical language Preschool Low SES Major Construct Investigated Discourse: Narratives 15 (100%) Discourse: Narratives 36 (100%) Discourse: Narrative 63 (100%) structures among AA children. production of narratives of AAE-speaking children using elicitation procedures that were standard across participants. influences on achievement by examining links between AA students’ oral language and emergent literacy skills. To examine narrative To investigate the To determine important Selected characteristics of analyzed articles and dissertations ( (1998) Seymour, and Camarata (1995) Craig (2006) Articles and Dissertations Comprising Corpus10. Champion Research Purpose 11. Champion, 12. Connor & Table 1.

Copyright © 2015 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. Unauthorized reproduction of this article is prohibited. 18 TOPICS IN LANGUAGE DISORDERS/JANUARY–MARCH 2015 ) continues ( turn exchanges can be used with speakers whose language differs from SE. Only one child talks at a time, turn exchanges involved speaker and listener cues; turn allocation cues were primarily nonverbal. occur during early grades—one in first grade for spoken discourse; one at third grade for oral reading; students who are most linguistically advanced dialect shift; dialect shifting is best characterized as a sharp decline that occurs in a short time frame; first grade is a critical time for occurrence of dialect shifting; then third grade. dialect shifting, reading achievement hypothesis that AAE speakers who learn to use GAE in literacy tasks will outperform their peers who do not learn to use GAE. Current model for successful Two periods of dialect shifting These findings support the different AAE features in discourse; most utterances were produced nonsimultaneously (89% for girls and 89.4% for boys); successful turn exchanges were facilitated by nonverbal behaviors; verbal behaviors served minor role in discourse regulation. inversely related to reading achievement scores and systematic variation in AAE produced by typically developing AA students in preschool through elementary grades; sharp decline in morphological dialect density between kindergarten and first grade. Students used larger repertoire of morphosyntactic features as they progressed through elementary grades. decreased significantly between oral and written narratives. Lower rates in writing predicted a substantial amount of variance in reading scores showing significant direct and indirect effects mediated by oral language comprehension. AAE production rates were Grade was a source of Procedures Major Findings Implications of Findings ) Data-Gathering language sampling; response to information requests Picture description Language sampling Varied regarding number of Language sampling; Continued Descriptive Nonrandomized control group pretest–posttest design Nonexperimental: Quasi-experimental: Ex post facto design Assessment scores; Participant school age Characteristics Research Design 3M;3F Typical language Preschool 400 (100%) 178 M; 222 F Typical language Preschool and 165 (100%) “half” M; “half” F Typical language School age Major Construct Investigated shifting shifting Discourse: Turn-taking 6 (100%) Presupposition: Dialect Presupposition: Dialect between social class and linguistic phenomena as they related to the current widely accepted model of successful turn-exchanges understanding of sources of systematic variation in child AA English (AAE) by examining the contribution of grade for students in elementary schools. contributions of dialect shifting to reading achievement test scores of AAE-speaking students when controlling for the effect of SES, oral language abilities, and writing skills. To examine interactions To contribute to current To evaluate the Selected characteristics of analyzed articles and dissertations ( Washington (1986) Washington (2004) (2009) Articles and Dissertations Comprising Corpus13. Craig and Research Purpose 14. Craig and 15. Craig et al. Table 1.

Copyright © 2015 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. Unauthorized reproduction of this article is prohibited. Pragmatic Language of African American Children 19 ) continues ( indicate child do not understand concept of false belief; AA children would be better to demonstrate their skills in a task that tapped more into narrative mode of thought rather than propositional mode of thought; AA false-belief performance predicted narrative skills. relevant for children from low SES, a population that is vulnerable for difﬁculties in literacy development (Justice & Ezell, 2001). Children who do not use literate language features at the rates described here may receive targeted assistance supporting their use of these features. Promoting literate language use in the earliest stages of development, SLPs may prevent later difﬁculties. to you; encourage parents to share oral stories with their children; this is where children are exposed to the most sophisticated talk. Parent–child literacy intervention should encourage dyads to interact using various forms of stories. Need to examine questioning and comment techniques. Poor performance does not Results are particularly Allow child to pretend to read children performed false belief tasks adequately; older children had better narrative skills than younger children; AA children less likely to pass false belief than EA children; coherence correlated with internal state talk; EA false belief did not account for variance in children’s narrative skills; AA who passed false believe told better stories. occurred for 3- to 5-year-olds. Conjunction use is positively associated with complex elaborated noun phrases and adverbs; use of complex and simple elaborated noun phrases was inversely related; no difference in AA and EA rates, but age-related difference occurred in use of mental state verbs and conjunctions. opportunity for mothers to showcase discourse skills; story-creating context provided best opportunity for children to demonstrate oral language skills; similar use of decontextualized speech in story reading context. Mothers with higher literacy were more likely to use mental linguistic verbs in all 3 contexts. 50%ofAAand72%ofEA Story telling was the best Frog Where (Mayer, Procedures Major Findings Implications of Findings ) Data-Gathering retell using Are You? 1969) video recordings; story generation Mother–child interaction; Story generation Literate language features Continued Within subjects design group comparison True experimental: Ex post facto False belief tasks; story Preexperimental: Static Participant School age Characteristics Research Design 19 M; 14 F Preschool 72 (50%) 32 M; 40 F Typical language Preschool Low SES 29 M; 38 F Typical language Preschool Low SES Major Construct Investigated of mind Discourse: Narrative 33 (70%) Presupposition: Theory Discourse: Narrative 67 (46%) children learn to use a sophisticated form of oral language called decontextualized discourse. relationship between narrative skills and theory of mind for low-income children preschool children’s use of literate language features to determine whether these features were present in narratives and to determine whether usage varied as a function of age and/or ethnicity. To examine how young To investigate the To explore and characterize Selected characteristics of analyzed articles and dissertations ( Jones, Craig, and Flanigan (2008) (2004) Justice (2004) 17. Curenton, Articles and Dissertations Comprising Corpus16. Curenton Research Purpose 18. Curenton and Table 1.

Copyright © 2015 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. Unauthorized reproduction of this article is prohibited. 20 TOPICS IN LANGUAGE DISORDERS/JANUARY–MARCH 2015 ) continues ( linguistic aspects of cohesion; need to include nonlinguistic aspects of discourse. than 10% during each task. AAE spoken by members of the Black American community and is not unique to those who lack education or are impoverished. is related to comprehension and social competence; should be routinely assessed and targeted in language intervention. To make an inference requires word knowledge and emotional recognition. Should not only focus on All children used AAE not less Making emotional inferences cohesive devises used by average and below average readers or by males and females; no signiﬁcant interaction between reading level and gender; all participants used reference pronouns more than conjunctions as cohesive devices. Those with low reading scores showed more incomplete cohesive ties and less ambiguous ties than peers with average reading found for participants from each SES; code switching occurred least in conversation and most in puppet play; participants from high SES used more GAE than AAE; those from inference in short stories; LI did not make emotional inferences; ability to make emotional inferences predicted by language measures, VRT, and social competence. Different patterns of use TL likely to make emotional No signiﬁcant difference in Procedures Major Findings Implications of Findings ) Data-Gathering than GAE; participants from low SES code switched less often than those from high SES. description; play; sentence repetition video; assessment scores; verbal response time recording Low SES used more AAE Conversation; picture Activated emotions with Narrative sample; audio Continued Descriptive matched samples group comparison Nonexperimental: Descriptive and predictive Nonexperimental: Mixed design with Preexperimental: Static Ex post facto Mixed design Ex post facto Participant impaired below-grade–level readers Characteristics Research Design 88 (100) 44 M; 44 F Typical language Preschool Variety of SES 32 (53%) 16 typical; 16 language Preschool 20 M; 20 F on-grade– and School Age Middle SES Major Construct Investigated switching Emotional inference Presupposition: Code Presupposition: Discourse: Narrative 40 (100%) in the language of Black children in order to describe social class effects on children’s use of dialect variants. children with TL and children with LI infer emotions during discourse and to examine the relationship of this ability to social competence. the oral narratives of AA children who read on and below grade level. To analyze code switching To examine whether young To investigate cohesion in Selected characteristics of analyzed articles and dissertations ( (1985) Dissertation Milosky (2008) Dissertation Articles and Dissertations Comprising Corpus Research Purpose 19. Etter-Lewis 20. Ford and 21. Garrett (1996) Table 1.

Copyright © 2015 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. Unauthorized reproduction of this article is prohibited. Pragmatic Language of African American Children 21 ) continues ( value the cultural style of expression; does not see its connection to culture and sense of self; does not understand implications of asking Black child to switch narrative style (lose self); does not give access to instruction that would ensure ability to switch styles. dialect, the transition from oral to written is wider than for those whose home language is closer to the “standard.” Increased knowledge of verbal repertoire of AA children may help teachers and administrators to devise materials that take into account children’s home language(s). play, particularly talk taken to be aimless activity (Malinowski, 1959, p. 315) constitutes powerful manifestations of linguistic competence as well as social and cultural competence. School may not understand or For children who speak a The speech of children at with cultural identity and presentation of self; when AA girl told story to white male, she switched narrative styles used and is used in aof variety ways; children aged 10–12 years still heavily rely on “and.” Use of connectives in AAE have unique aspects including “because,” being used to indicate cause as well as serve pragmatic functions; “and” used to coordinate verb structures. he-said-she-said are important not in the confrontation but in the reporting stage, they act as instigators in setting up a confrontation at a future stage; spectators who attempt to intervene can be penalized by the principal actors in the dispute; compromises do not occur. Procedures Major Findings Implications of Findings ) Data-Gathering Story generation Narrative style is associated Interview “and” is principal connective Play Third parties in Continued Descriptive Descriptive Descriptive Nonexperimental: Nonexperimental: Nonexperimental: Participant Characteristics Research Design 0M;2F Typical language School age 11 M; 11 F Typical language School age Low SES 0M;44F Typical language School age Major Construct Investigated Discourse: Narrative 2 (50%) Discourse: Narrative 22 (100%) Discourse: Disputes 44 (100%) analysis of stories to offer aviewof psycholinguistically relevant structures characteristic of spoken narratives; to outline roles that conjunctions play in the narrative discourse of AA children. procedures used by female children to organize a form of gossip dispute that they call, “he-said-she-said.” To show what types of utterances generate this speech event and understand how participants use their actions to rank one another. To present an analysis of the To analyze the cultural Selected characteristics of analyzed articles and dissertations ( Dissertation (1980) Articles and Dissertations Comprising Corpus22. Gee (1989) To provide a linguistic Research Purpose 23. Gidney (1995) 24. Goodwin Table 1.

Copyright © 2015 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. Unauthorized reproduction of this article is prohibited. 22 TOPICS IN LANGUAGE DISORDERS/JANUARY–MARCH 2015 ) continues ( related to reading than to dialect; story type influences narrative style features. production even in a highly structured narrative task on the basis of wordless picture books. Understanding of narrative structure, creativity, and style is important to provide ecologically valid narrative assessment and intervention. complexity of language increases, differences between low and middle SES might appear, but it would not be because parents provided a deficient language learning environment. Lower language and school outcomes may result from standardized assessments of skills valued by middle SES; and interaction styles at home are different from styles the child is exposed to in school. Narrative style is more closely Culture influences narrative As children grow older and disorders regardless of dialect produced shorter stories than children with normal reading; children with reading disorders produced fewer codas than children with normal reading. GAE speakers used more adversatives for cohesion than AAE; all children used more literate style features in fantasy than in script story. found between ethnic groups. No significant differences were found regarding organizational style or use of paralinguistic devices. AA children included more fantasy in their stories; Latino children included names characters more often; Caucasian children made more references to the nature of character relationships. played in similar ways; there was individual variability in both SES groups regarding play and communication patterns. Similarities and differences Low SES and middle SES dyads Procedures Major Findings Implications of Findings ) Data-Gathering narrative interview; participant observation; play Picture-elicited narrative Children with reading Picture book elicited Assessment scores; Continued experimental design comparison Descriptive and predictive Ex post facto Factorial: Two-factor Preexperimental Static group Nonexperimental: + + Participant Normal reading Impaired reading Characteristics Research Design Low and middle SES 30 M; 30 F Typical language School age 12 (100%) 4M;8F Typical language Infants 6 Low SES; 6 Middle SES 14 AAE; 14 GAE 14 AAE; 14 GAE School age Major Construct Investigated interaction Discourse: Narrative 60 (33.33%) Discourse: Play Dissertation: Narrative 56 (100%) culture on the creative and stylistic features in narrative production and their infants at the single-word stage of development structured their play and communicated with each other. between narrative style, dialect, and reading ability. To analyze the effects of Explored how AA mothers To examine relationships ˜ na, Selected characteristics of analyzed articles and dissertations ( Fiestas, Pe and Reynolds Clark (2011) Weiss (1999) Dissertation: Articles and Dissertations Comprising Corpus25. Gorman, Research Purpose 26. Hammer and 27. Hester (1997) Table 1.

Copyright © 2015 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. Unauthorized reproduction of this article is prohibited. Pragmatic Language of African American Children 23 ) continues ( cohesive marker used impacts adequacy rates. Younger children use personal reference markers more efficiently than demonstrative markers. As children age and mature linguistically, their abilities to adequately use these markers will not depend on the type of reference marker. different communicative functions. AA children produce a variety of functions regardless of gender. Patterns of use can help teachers and SLPs discriminate between different and disordered communication performance. Linking literate activities and play may increase use of functions requiring complex cognitive planning. not the dominant narrative style in this population. Thematic and structural characteristics of narratives are based on contexts for speech and literacy in the classroom. At younger ages, the type of Boys and girls produce Topic-associating narratives is 16) = 28) told N = N different types of AAE referential tokens but only two (undifferentiated pronoun and pronoun extension) were used as cohesive devices. Greater proficiency in using personal reference markers. Age was a significant factor for adequacy rates of personal, demonstrative, and lexical referential cohesion but not conjunctive markers. Tough (1982) functions and the Stockman (1996) functions of directing, imagining, reporting, obligated responses, self-maintaining. They did not often use prediction, projection, reasoning, repair, and verbal routines. Significant gender differences were found for types of functions and types of obligated responses. No significant difference for MLU or communication functions between school and age group. Communicative functions requiring complex cognitive planning were not expressed. told topic-associative stories; others ( topic-centered stories. Storybook and fairy tale themes and structures were present across two narrative styles. Preschoolers used 5 of the 10 Procedures Major Findings Implications of Findings ) Data-Gathering Language sampling; Play Language sampling AAE speakers produced 5 Participant observation; Picture-elicited narrative Some of the children ( Continued Descriptive Descriptive Descriptive Nonexperimental: Nonexperimental: Nonexperimental: Participant Characteristics Research Design 18 M; 15 F Typical language School age Middle/high SES 8M;8F Typical language Preschool Low SES Typical language Low SES Major Construct Investigated Discourse: Narrative 33 (100%) Speech acts 16 (100%) Discourse: Narrative 48 (100%) adequacy of cohesive devices produced by school-aged children who use AAE. communicative functions used by AA Head Start children during play topic associating narratives among AA kindergarteners. Explored the type and To describe the To assess the frequency of Selected characteristics of analyzed articles and dissertations ( (2009) et al. (2007) Sulzby (1994) Articles and Dissertations Comprising Corpus28. Horton-Ikard Research Purpose 29. Hwa-Froelich 30. Hyon and Table 1.

Copyright © 2015 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. Unauthorized reproduction of this article is prohibited. 24 TOPICS IN LANGUAGE DISORDERS/JANUARY–MARCH 2015 ) continues ( evaluate the interaction between lexical, prosodic, and kinesic channels during narrative discourse. Complexity of stimulus used to elicit the narrative may affect referential choices and clausal structure. children’s behaviors when interacting with a particular gender can help teachers determine whether a same-sex dyad would be beneficial for a student or vice versa. child self-maintaining in boys may be useful to increase frequency of appropriate use of language to meet needs during conflict; racial ethnic difference demonstrated by AA and Latino mothers. Preschool teachers may need to adjust to students’ needs considering race/ethnicity, SES, and gender. More research is needed to Understanding changes in Purposeful encouragement of and . Girl pairs were primarily used to communicate referential cohesion; prosodic and kinesic cues are used to support lexical information. Vowel elongation and rise–fall contours mark characters as new. Kinesic cues accompanied lexically undifferentiated pronominal references and gave information not provided lexically. communication strategies for girl or boy pairs were collaboration informing highly collaborative; boy pairs were more likely to use controlling communication acts and to engage in domineering exchanges while playing with puppets; gender differences in domineering exchanges were limited to same gender interactions anddidnotoccurinmixed gender interactions. between mother communicative functions and child communicative functions; demographic factors such as SES, gender, race/ethnicity, and mother communicative functions had strong link with child outcomes. Lexical information is Most common Significant relationships (Mayer, Frog Goes to Procedures Major Findings Implications of Findings ) Data-Gathering with Dinner Osborn, Stumer, & Templeton, 1985). play adult–child interactions Movie-elicited narrative Peer-to-peer interaction; Video recordings; play; Continued group posttest Predictive factorial: Combined experimental and ex post facto designs Preexperimental: One Nonexperimental: Mixed design with Participant Characteristics Research Design 15 M; 15 F Typical language School age Low SES School age Low SES 44 M; 51 F Preschool 51% Low SES; 49% “non poor” 106 (100%) 60 M; 46 F Typical language Major Construct Investigated Conversation Discourse: Narrative 30 (100%) Speech acts 95 (35%) Discourse: prosodic, and kinesic strategies used by preadolescent speakers of AAE to denote referential cohesion in oral narratives. cognitive–communicative functions demonstrated by preschoolers and their mothers during teaching and play interactions with focus on communicative functions. effects on the conversational strategies used by AA children. To characterize the lexical, To describe the To investigate gender Selected characteristics of analyzed articles and dissertations ( Dissertation (2008) Tenenbaum, and Shaffer (1999) Articles and Dissertations Comprising Corpus31. Hyter (1994) Research Purpose 32. Kasambira 33. Leaper, Table 1.

Copyright © 2015 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. Unauthorized reproduction of this article is prohibited. Pragmatic Language of African American Children 25 ) continues ( diverse groups with dependency analysis may be useful because of its applicability to a variety of typesofdiscourseanditis freed from potentially culture-bound assumptions. narration can be effective. This study suggests the viability of a clinician-prompted peer-mediated approach to training narration. It also shows the important advantage of peer-mediated intervention because it promotes instructional congruence in the context of cultural and linguistic mismatches between clinician and client. Collection of local data allowed identiﬁcation of a set of structural and cohesive elements that can be characteristically expected in book-based narratives of the particular community. Analyzing narratives of other Early intervention for higher level of proposition than middle SES children. Girls reached a higher level of proposition than boys. Children primarily produced topic-centered narratives that consisted of 94%explicitpropositions; narratives contained little reported speech. Low SES children produced more elaborate narratives than middle SES children. both the number of children who evidenced the use of structural and cohesive elements and the frequency with which the children used these elements. Between 3- and 5-years-olds, more children began to use setting statements, complicating actions, and codas. Cohesive elements increase with age; more children used temporal conjunctions. More structural and cohesive tokens in stories of 4 year olds than in those of 3olds. year Low SES children reached a Developmental differences in Procedures Major Findings Implications of Findings ) Data-Gathering prompts narratives Conversation; story Picture book–elicited Continued Descriptive Nonrandomized control group pretest–posttest design Nonexperimental: Quasi-experimental: Participant Characteristics Research Design 8M;8F Typical Language School age Low and middle SES Study2:26(100%) Study3:14(100%) Preschool Low SES Major Construct Investigated Discourse: Narrative 16 (100%) Discourse: Narrative Study 1: 52 (100%) AA preadolescents using dependency analysis. norms on narrative development. short-term effect of peer models on preschoolers’ narration. the inﬂuence of peers couldbeusedtofacilitate narration. To analyze the narratives of Study 1: To collect local Study 2: Measure the Study 3: Explore whether Selected characteristics of analyzed articles and dissertations ( Champion, and McCabe (2002) (2000) Articles and Dissertations Comprising Corpus34. Mainess, Research Purpose 35. McGregor Table 1.

Copyright © 2015 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. Unauthorized reproduction of this article is prohibited. 26 TOPICS IN LANGUAGE DISORDERS/JANUARY–MARCH 2015 ) continues ( methodological issues that impact the framework to be used in future research, that is, data collection based on naturalistic activity (using video and audio); transcriptionofdataelicited from pragmatic studies (incorporated analysis of utterances at micro in addition to macro level. Micro level was more sensitive to individual differences); and development of a coding system appropriate for this population of speakers. result in deficient language skills; home environments yielded a great deal of functional language. language skills of young school-aged AA children. In addition, wordless picture books may be the best context for elicitation of fictional narratives that display evaluative elements. analysis holds promise as a culture-fair method of assessing the macrostructural narrative This study addresses Impoverished homes do not Expressive elaboration 8) macro = N 6). = N occurring micro functions appearing in language of all subjects were reporting personal facts, reporting personal feelings, and responding to personal questions. Gender differences were evident on the basis of frequency of occurrence of functions used with males using taunting, calling, indirect directives, and complaining more than females. Females used reporting personal facts, reporting personal feelings, responding to personal questions, responding to information questions, responding to opinion, and responding to requests for clarification more than males. Males used more ( functions than females ( differences between the two types of narrative were found for both macrostructures and microstructures, but not for dialect density. No grade-related differences were found in any of those areas. Three most frequently Statistically significant Procedures Major Findings Implications of Findings ) Data-Gathering recordings; language sampling narrative; wordless book; Story prompts Video and audio Fictional and personal Continued Descriptive design: Within subjects design Nonexperimental: True experimental Participant Characteristics Research Design 2M;2F Typical language School age Low SES Typical language School age 68% Low SES Major Construct Investigated Speech acts 4 (100%) Discourse: Narratives 43 (100%) among working-class children interacting in various naturalistic contexts with others in their environment. and dialectal narrative characteristics between fictional and personal narratives of AA children. Explores language use To investigate structural Selected characteristics of analyzed articles and dissertations ( (1992) Dissertation and Washington (2013) Articles and Dissertations Comprising Corpus36. Middleton Research Purpose 37. Mills, Watkins, Table 1.

Copyright © 2015 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. Unauthorized reproduction of this article is prohibited. Pragmatic Language of African American Children 27 ) continues ( including those with disabilities, can improve their writing abilities over the course of a single school year when given extensive, explicit instruction in how to communicate in writing. time with strangers to accomplish the same amount of language as MSES children. This study also proposes a universal set of sentence type categories and communicative functions. supported the use of 2 wordless picture books as stimulus materials for collecting narratives before and after mediation within a dynamic assessment paradigm. The second experiment supported the use of dynamic assessment for accurately identifying language impairments in school-aged children. A diverse group of students, LSES children may need more The first experiment increases were found for AA and European American students in story scores, total number of words, number of different words, and proportion of words spelled correctly; racial group was a significant between-group factor only for AAE and for sentence correctness measures; and almost no associations were found between rates of AAE feature codes and independent discourse and word-level measures. many utterances as MSES children during interactions with mothers and strangers. Children spend 6 min more with strangers than mothers. Both SES groups produced more utterances with mother than with stranger, with MSES producing 23% more than LSES group; LSES mothers experiment indicated that narrative measures applied to stories about 2 different wordless picture books had good internal consistency. In Experiment 2, typically developing children who received mediated learning demonstrated a greater pretest to posttest change than did children in the LI and control groups. Significant and similar LSES participants produced as The results of the first Procedures Major Findings Implications of Findings ) Data-Gathering prompts adult–child interactions wordless picture books Written artifacts; Story Video recordings; Story elicited from Continued group comparison group comparison design: Pretest–posttest control group design; within-subjects design Preexperimental: Static Preexperimental: Static True experimental Participant Characteristics Research Design 18 M; 4 F (of AA) 29 Typical language 9 Impaired language School age Low SES Typical language Preschool Low and middle SES 12 M; 18 F School age Low SES Major Construct Investigated Discourse: Narrative 38 (47%) Speech acts 8 (100%) Discourse: Narrative 30 (47%) multilevel indicators of written language performance by AA and European American students, including changes in AAE use, as assessed in original story probes written independently in three 1-hr sessions across the school year. ideas and feeling in changing situations. classification accuracy of a narration-based dynamic assessment task. to account for the social/interactive dimension as well as cultural dimensions. Data derived from the research show how children from different SES backgrounds use speech acts to communicate To examine reliability and To examine language usage Selected characteristics of analyzed articles and dissertations ( ˜ na, Gillam, Malek, Ruiz-Felter, Resendiz, Fiestas, and Sabel (2006) Dissertation Articles and Dissertations Comprising Corpus38. Nelson (2010) To investigate changes in Research Purpose 39. Pe 40. Peters (1983) Table 1.

Copyright © 2015 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. Unauthorized reproduction of this article is prohibited. 28 TOPICS IN LANGUAGE DISORDERS/JANUARY–MARCH 2015 ) continues ( appears to be an assessment tool that is sensitive to structural growth in AA children’s narratives from 4 years to kindergarten entry. the overall inventory of structures used by the participants, indicating that adolescents have a growing awareness of the role of situational context in adjusting their speech. In addition, not all dialect features examined were implicated in shifting. The Bus Story Language Test The results revealed shifts in , , socials regulatives , , ,and ). focused more on playing with toys rather than stimulating language about toys; MSES and LSES produced similar sentence types, as well as communication function types (most to least were informatives imaginatives emotionals requestives attempts to solve the story’s problem and elements of its ending. Upon entering kindergarten, participants had higher total narrative scoresandincludedmore of every type of story grammar element, except relationship. signiﬁcantly more AAE in informal situations than in formal situations. They used almost twice as many different AAE forms in the informal peer environment, indicating that the speakers possessed a varied inventory of vernacular features but chose to draw on a restricted range of these forms under formal circumstances. The 4-year-olds narrated some The (Renfrew, 1992) Procedures Major Findings Implications of Findings ) Data-Gathering Bus Story Language Test Story retelling using Language sampling The participants used Continued Descriptive Descriptive Nonexperimental: Nonexperimental: Participant middle SES Characteristics Research Design 30 M; 35 F Typical language Preschool Low SES 88 (100%) Typical language School age 71% low and 29% Major Construct Investigated shift Discourse: Narratives 65 (100%) Presupposition: Dialect grammar elements present in children’s narratives during a story retelling task; to determine whether there are differences in the numbers and types of story elements in children’s narratives; to examine the relationship between children’s narratives and child and family background characteristics. into the linguistic behavior of youth who are learning the social ramiﬁcations of speech style. To describe the story To provide more insight Selected characteristics of analyzed articles and dissertations ( and Jackson (2006) Dissertation Articles and Dissertations Comprising Corpus Research Purpose 41. Price, Roberts, 42. Renn (2010) Table 1.

Copyright © 2015 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. Unauthorized reproduction of this article is prohibited. Pragmatic Language of African American Children 29 ) continues ( larger Dialect Density Measures were highly correlated with the subtest measure, indicating that a small number of features can be used to reliably reflect style shifting. range of oral and literate styles of narration, and they create linear literate-based stories. be used to identify strengths and weaknesses in adolescents who use non-General American English dialects, and there is a need for local norms for this instrument. learned by studying different types of language variation (i.e., normal and impaired) at the same time. Analyses revealed that the The participants displayed a The WLPB-R could potentially There is a great deal to be -ed V + had as a preterite, -ed V + measure indicated that a measure containing a small number of features can be effectively used to identify style shift in AAVE. words and t-units and higher type-token ratios than fictional stories. speakers (and none of the SWE speakers) produced had existed between participants’ WLPB-R cluster score and their usage of AAE features. and these forms frequently occurred in the complicating action clauses of narratives. AAE speakers’ use of preterite also increased with age and was directly related to narrative skill. The success of the subset Personal narratives had fewer About half of the AAE No significant correlation Procedures Major Findings Implications of Findings ) Data-Gathering adult–child interactions; peer interactions fictional narrative; story prompts adult–child play assessment scores Language sampling; Personal narrative; Language sampling; Conversations; Continued Descriptive Descriptive Pretest–posttest with control group Predictive Nonexperimental: Nonexperimental: True experiment: Nonexperimental: Participant language Characteristics Research Design 108 (100%) Typical language School age Low and middle SES 9M;20F Typical language School age Low SES Typical and impaired School age Typical language School age Low SES Major Construct Investigated shift Presupposition: Dialect Discourse: Narrative 29 (100%) Discourse: Narratives 93 (43%) Discourse: Narratives 16 (100%) had Woodcock to refer to simple -ed V subset of AA vernacular English features can be used to quantify stylistic variation in sixth graders. children who speak AA English (AAE) used + of prompt on the structure and content of AA English narratives, as well as consider relationships of these variables to reading and expressive language. past tense within narratives. performance of AA adolescent males attending an urban, high school on the Language Proficiency Battery-Revised (WLPB-R) in an attempt to establish local norms and (2) relationship between the frequency of AAE features produced by AA adolescents males and their performance on the WLPB-R. To investigate whether a To investigate whether To investigate the influence To investigate the (1) : Selected characteristics of analyzed articles and dissertations ( Terry (2009) Dissertation Rosa-Lugo, and Hedrick (2004) and Stapleton (2004) Articles and Dissertations Comprising Corpus43. Renn and Research Purpose 44. Rivers (2001) 45. Rivers, 46. Ross, Oetting, Table 1.

Copyright © 2015 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. Unauthorized reproduction of this article is prohibited. 30 TOPICS IN LANGUAGE DISORDERS/JANUARY–MARCH 2015 ) continues ( and elaborative features in their narratives. Particular AAE features facilitated plot development, and the use of more elaborative features positively predicted higher narrative development scores. should be included among the pragmatic behaviors expected for 3-year-old easier than temporal displacement for this group of children. mothers socialize their daughters into a collaborative narrating style and their sons into a solo narrating style. Young children used both AAE Use of conversational repairs AA children. Fictional displacement may be Analyses suggested that used a variety of SG narrative features to develop the plot in their oral stories. used the same types of conversational repair strategies that have been observed among young speakers of standard English varieties. fictional than temporal narrative-like episodes. Fictional episodes were more complex than temporal episodes and contained more new morpheme types and events per episode; participants introduced a greater proportion of fictional than temporal episodes and morpheme types, demonstrating increased interest in fictional topics. childrearing practices (including perceptions of child abilities and desires), and sociocultural norms of narration motivate how family members jointly construct narrative interactions with their toddlers. Participants produced more Socialization goals, Procedures Major Findings Implications of Findings ) Data-Gathering community members; video recording of observations; interviews interviews Storytelling task Young AAE-speaking students Video observations; Language sampling African American children Continued Descriptive Descriptive Predictive Nonexperimental: Nonexperimental: Nonexperimental: Ethnographic Interaction with Participant middle SES language Characteristics Research Design “half” M; “half” F Typical language School age Half low and half 7M;7F Typical language Preschool Middle SES 120 (100%) 48 M; 72 F 93 typical language 27 impaired Preschool Low SES 4M;4F Typical language Toddlers Low SES Major Construct Investigated Conversation Discourse: Narrative 30 (100%) Discourse: Narrative 14 (100%) Discourse: Discourse: Narrative 8 (100%) macrostructure and microstructure features and the production of AAE features cooccur within narratives. developmental pattern of conversational narration as it is converged upon by constraints forthcoming from both the individual and other persons in the social environment. used by AA children in relationship to their geographic locations and levels of performance on commonly used speech–language measures. frequency of conversational repairs children’s productive competence with regard to various types of naturally occurring narrative-like conversation. To examine how To illuminate the To describe the types and To investigate young : Selected characteristics of analyzed articles and dissertations ( Craig (2013) Dissertation et al. (2008) Sperry (1996) Articles and Dissertations Comprising Corpus47. Schachter and Research Purpose 48. Sperry (1991) 50. Stockman 49. Sperry and Table 1.

Copyright © 2015 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. Unauthorized reproduction of this article is prohibited. Pragmatic Language of African American Children 31 ) continues ( provide critical normative data on oral narrative skills of young, typically developing AA children. They may also be useful in interpreting the performance of AA children both with and without learning difficulties or language impairments. DVAR and literacy skills is dependent not only on the literacy skill itself but also on the age/grade level of the students and the environments in which they are educated. Findings from this study The relationship between performed within age-appropriate expectations on each narrative measure. In general, narrative performance was correlated with and predicted by complex syntax and vocabulary skills and was not associated with spoken dialect use. DVAR and literacy outcomes depended on the outcome of interest and school SES. However, children’s race did not generally affect the trajectory or strength of the relationships between outcomes and dialect variation. The participants in this study Frog Procedures Major Findings Implications of Findings ) Data-Gathering Where Are You? (Mayer, 1969) Story Retell using Continued design: Predictive True experimental Assessment measures The relationships between Nonexperimental Participant language Characteristics Research Design 617 (48%) 50% M; 50% F 90% typical language 10% impaired School age 146 (100%) 47.4% M; 56.2% F Preschool Low SES Major Construct Investigated shift Conversation Presupposition: Dialect Discourse: between the use of nonmainstream literacy skills, and school environment among typically developing first graders in order to describe and better understand the difficulties many children from linguistically diverse backgrounds experience while learning to read. were to describe oral narrative performance of typically developing AA prekindergarteners macro- and microstructure measures; examine concurrent and predictive relations between narrative performance, spoken dialect use, vocabulary, and story comprehension; to explore change in narrative performance during the school year. To examine relationships American English dialects, The 4 purposes of this study Selected characteristics of analyzed articles and dissertations ( Tate, and Love (2010) Bingham, Mansour, and Marencin (2013) Articles and Dissertations Comprising Corpus51. Terry, Connor, Research Purpose 52. Terry, Mills, Table 1.

Copyright © 2015 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. Unauthorized reproduction of this article is prohibited. 32 TOPICS IN LANGUAGE DISORDERS/JANUARY–MARCH 2015 story grammar; = Language impaired; = impact infant’s communication and cognitive development. from oracy to literacy contexts. Participants demonstrated distinct AAE feature proﬁles in oracy and literacy contexts. depending upon the narrative task and the stimuli used. In addition, narrative skills at the beginning of kindergarten are predictive of their later emergent literacy skills. Maternal interactive behaviors AAE feature usage decreased Narratives are likely to vary socioeconomic status; SG = General American English; LI = behaviors contribute to early develop; didactic interactions are strongly linked to children’s emerging cognitive and communication abilities. These correlations are weaker in impoverished dyads. contrastive AAE features was evident between spoken discourse and the literacy contexts. More students produced more AAE features during picture description than writing. Both morphosyntactic and phonological features characterized picture description context. Phonological features predominated in oral reading. Morphosyntactic features were dominant in writing. conducted in Head Start was effective in facilitating children’s development of narrative skills. female; GAE standard English; SES Mother affective interactive A downward shift in Emergent literacy program = = Euro American; F = Procedures Major Findings Implications of Findings ) Data-Gathering picture description context of story- retelling tasks Reading; written artifacts; Elicited narratives in the Number of Different Words; SE = Continued dialect variation; EA = Predictive Predictive Predictive Nonexperimental: Nonexperimental: Nonexperimental: Middle socioeconomic status; NDW Participant = above poverty Characteristics Research Design 50 (100%) 26 M; 24 F Typical language School age 51% M; 49% F Typical language Preschool Low and middle SES 92 (100%) 44 M; 48 F Infants (1-year-olds) 64 Low and 28 African American Vernacular English; DVAR = Major Construct voice response time. Investigated = shift Conversation Presupposition: Dialect Discourse: Narrative 138 (38%) Discourse: mean length of utterance; MSES = male; MLU typical language; VRT = African American English; AAVE = = relationship between AAE and linguistic complexity by examining AAE and complexity in the semantic domain. development of Caucasian, AA, and Latino children aged 4–6 years and investigate the relationship between various aspects of children’s narrative development. mother–infant interaction in AA mother–child dyads and the relationship between those patterns and the development of cognitive and communication To probe further a potential To examine the narrative Focuses on patterns of Selected characteristics of analyzed articles and dissertations ( African American; AAE = southern White English; TL Low socioeconomic status; M Craig, and Washington (2004) (1996) Dissertation Roberts, and Lauder (1998) AA = = Articles and Dissertations Comprising Corpus53. Thompson, Research Purpose 55. Zevenbergen 54. Wallace, Table 1. Note. SWE LSES

The first purpose group was identified pri- focused on speech acts, and nine (16%) fo- marily among studies conducted in the 1980s. cused on presupposition. Of the 40 articles That was an era in which researchers focused and dissertations that focused on discourse, on examining and legitimizing African Amer- five (12.5%) were about conversational dis- ican pragmatic language by examining com- course, 31 (74%) about narrative discourse, municative functions and describing speech and two (5%) were about expository dis- events that were unique to African American course. Two (5%) other articles were about communities (e.g., Blake, 1984; Bridgeforth, other forms of discourse—disputes and play 1988; Goodwin, 1980). interactions. Of the nine documents that fo- The second purpose group was identified cused on presupposition, the majority (seven in research that spanned the 1980s and the [78%]) addressed dialect shifting or code 1990s. At that point, the focus was on iden- switching, and the other two (22%) focused tifying whether differences in language use, on Theory of Mind or emotional inferencing such as code switching or turn taking, existed in relationship to narratives. for African American children on the basis of These data show that a disproportionate their socioeconomic status (SES) and dialect number of articles and dissertations were density (e.g., Craig & Washington, 1986; Etter- focused on narrative discourse. This can Lewis, 1985; Peters, 1983). most likely be explained by a corresponding The third purpose group is the largest one. focus on the relationship of narrative dis- It consists of research that was primarily con- course to the development of emergent and ducted in the 1990s and the 2000s. It is akin later literacy skills (Connor & Craig, 2006; Paul to what one might call a narrative explo- & Smith, 1993; Peterson & McCabe, 1992; sion, a time period when researchers were Zevenbergen, 1996). Research has shown that focusing on various aspects of narrative de- recalling, retelling, and generating narratives velopment including production, style, con- serve as a link between oral and literate lan- tent, macro-organizational structures, and co- guage use (Botting, 2002; Curenton & Jus- hesion (e.g., Bloome et al., 2003; Champion, tice, 2004; Heath, 1982), support the devel- 1995; Champion et al., 1995; Curenton et al., opment of word meanings and relationships 2008; Curenton & Justice, 2004; Garrett, (Biemiller, 2006; Nagy, Herman, & Anderson, 1996; Hyon & Sulzby, 1994; Hyter, 1994). 1985), and are associated with increasingly The fourth purpose group is the smallest. complex syntax (Hoffman, Norris, & Monjure, It overlaps temporally with the third. This 1996; Justice et al., 2006; Reilly, Losh, Bellugi, group consists of research that can be char- & Wulfeck, 2004). Narratives also engage so- acterized as being focused on linking diverse cial cognitive skills, such as theory of mind forms of discourse with literacy and social (Guajardo & Watson, 2002). competence by examining discourse and AAE Narratives are important, but they are not use in relation to cognition, literacy, writ- the only form of discourse that is critical to ing, and assessment with typically developing success in school. Beginning in Grades 3 and and language- and/or reading-impaired popu- higher, expository texts become a part of a lations (e.g., Ball, 1996; Craig, Zhang, Hensel, child’s everyday life through the language de- & Quinn, 2009; Curenton, 2004; Nelson, mands of the school curriculum (Westby, Cu- 2010; Pena˜ et al., 2006). latta, Lawrence, & Hall-Kenyon, 2010). Expos- itory text is the currency used in most mid- Major constructs of pragmatics dle school and high school courses outside of investigated and overlooked the language arts courses (Westby & Culatta, Of the 55 articles and dissertations that 2010). An increased focus on typical and im- were examined, the majority focused on paired expository text skills in African Amer- narrative discourse. Specifically, 40 (73%) ican children and ways to support success in of the 55 articles and dissertations fo- the academic arena are an area sorely lacking cused on some form of discourse, six (11%) in literature regarding the pragmatic language

of African American children and adolescents, ables on dependent variables but without ran- which was highlighted in this systematic domization and control. A small group em- review. ployed ex post facto designs (N = 6 [11%]; “af- Another area where there is limited re- ter the fact” or retrospective examination of search is in the cognitive supports for prag- causal relationships where independent vari- matic language, such as theory of mind and ables are observed rather than manipulated). perspective taking. Only two articles (i.e., Two researchers used quasi-experimental de- Curenton, 2004; Ford & Milosky, 2008) were signs (N = 2 [3.6%]; nonrandomized designs identified through our systematic review pro- with controls but where not all confounding cess that examined theory of mind and emo- variables are controlled). A few used true ex- tional inferencing abilities in African Ameri- perimental designs (N = 6 [11%]; i.e., random- can children. Theory of mind is an important ized designs where a hypothesis is tested by social cognitive skill that supports a child’s controlled experimentation to show relation- ability to take the perspectives of others, in- ships between independent and dependent fer mental and emotional states of others, variables), factorial designs (N = 2 [3.6%]; i.e., understand why people may do what they randomized designs that allow examination of do, and to understand how their own be- the effects of multiple independent variables havior may affect others (Timler, Olswang, & on the dependent variable), and ethnographic Coggins, 2005; Westby & Robinson, 2014). designs (N = 2 [3.6%]; i.e., systematic qualitative studies involving rigorous observation Sampling size and study participants and description of phenomena). Studies that comprised the final corpus in- An examination of the types of research de- cluded a range of numbers of participants, signs produced per decade covered in this from 2 (Gee, 1989b) to 617 (Terry et al., study shows that nonexperimental designs 2010). Study participants were varied and in- have been used throughout the 43-year pe- cluded male and female participants of differ- riod. In the 1990s, ethnographic, preexper- ent age ranges (infants and toddlers [7% of the imental, ex post facto and factorial designs studies], preschoolers [36%] and/or school began to be used. Quasi-experimental studies age [62%]); and ability levels (typical [87%] occurred beginning in the 2000s, and true ex- and impaired [16%] in language or reading de- perimental studies emerged in the years 2000 velopment). In addition, the studies examined through 2013. It appears that research de- pragmatic language of children and adoles- signs associated with higher levels of evidence cents from low (44%), middle (27%), and/or (quasi-experimental, true experimental, facto- high (3.6%) SES, with the majority being low rial) are beginning to be used more recently income. in studies examining pragmatic language of African American children. Research design Eight of the 55 studies that comprised the Data-gathering procedures corpus for this article incorporated more than Thirty-one different data-gathering methods one type of research design. The majority were used within the articles and disserta- (N = 34 [62%]) used nonexperimental de- tions reviewed for this study (see Table 1 scriptive designs. Others used preexperimen- for data-gathering procedures implemented in tal designs2 (N = 9 [16%]) to test hypothe- each of the documents in the corpus). Consis- ses regarding the effect of independent vari- tent with the topical focus of the articles and dissertations, the majority of methods used were elicited oral or written narratives using a variety of approaches including Con- 2Sources for the types and definitions of research designs versational Mapping, story generation with used in this study are from Leedy and Ormrod, 2013, and wordless picture books such as Frog Where Maxwell and Satake, 2006. Are You (Mayer, 1969), story prompts, story

retells with wordless books or movies, and adolescents continues to be a need that was picture-elicited narratives. voiced for more than 22 years ago, and more recently by DeJarnette et al. (2015). Major research findings and implications Developmental trends We identified five common themes in the Six of the reviewed studies discussed de- findings of the reviewed studies. These are velopmental trends regarding the pragmatic summarized in Table 1 and discussed below. language of African American children. Specif- Many of the 55 articles that comprised the cor- ically, speakers of AAE and general American pus for this study addressed several themes. English (GAE) show similar development of narrative skills (Burns, 2004). Children from Methodological considerations 3 to 5 years of age begin to use narrative The findings of 11 studies incorporated macrostructures (e.g., setting, complicating methodological issues that should be consid- action) and literate language features (Curen- ered when collecting data, assessing, and/or ton & Justice, 2004; McGregor, 2000); how- providing intervention to African American ever, children who are 4 and 5 years of age children and adolescents. The methodolog- have not mastered as many of the “critical ical considerations raised include the fol- narrative features” (e.g., reference, tempo- lowing: (a) data collection and transcription ral links, and mental state expressions) as must include the context (Bridgeforth, 1988; 6-year-olds (Burns, 2004, p. 78). These and Middleton, 1992) to capture and understand other narrative structures increase with age the full range of pragmatic skills being ex- (McGregor, 2000) and are not affected by di- hibited; (b) more culturally fair practices alect density (Burns, 2004). Two developmen- need to be employed in research method- tal periods in which dialect shifting (reduction ology, such as expressive elaboration anal- in the use of noncontrastive features) is signif- ysis (Milles, Watkins, & Washington, 2013), icantoccuratfirstgradeforspokendiscourse dependency analysis (Mainess et al., 2002), and at third grade for reading (Craig & Wash- dynamic assessment (Pena˜ et al., 2006), and ington, 2004). Renfrew’s (1992) The Bus Story Language Test From the findings of research included (Price et al., 2006); (c) explicit writing instruc- in the corpus of this systematic syn- tion tasks need to be considered as an inde- thesis, we know that narratives can be pendent variable in written narrative tasks; examined reliably beginning at 3 years of age. and (d) a comprehensive coding system that is However, in order to tap the range of narra- appropriate for identifying and describing the tive abilities present in children and adoles- communicative functions of African American cents, researchers and clinicians are urged to children and adolescents, and that emerges use a number of different analysis tools, such from the data, is needed (Bridgeforth, 1988; as, High Point Analysis and Story Grammar Middleton, 1992). Of the four concerns for Analysis (Champion et al., 1995). Overall, the better research methodology in the study of findings of these studies indicate that more re- pragmatic behavior of African American chil- search of AAE child and adolescent speakers dren and adolescents, the need to include con- needs to examine the relationship between di- text in data collection is the only one that has alect shifting and expression of mental states, already been addressed in the 43-year span completion of theory of mind tasks, and the of research covered by this systematic syn- capacity to take other’s perspectives. thesis of the literature. Culturally fair and explicit writing tasks as part of the research Differentiating typical from impaired methodology still need greater consideration functioning in research efforts. In addition, the call for Five studies highlighted differences be- a more fitting communication function cod- tween typical pragmatic functioning and ing system for African American children and impaired functioning. What is known from

these studies can be summarized in five ways. For example, Sperry (1991) found that points. First, language processing problems, female children constructed narratives more such as word retrieval deficits or persever- collaboratively, whereas male children con- ation, will be revealed, whether a child is structed them more individually. Fourth, so- producing narratives in the topic centered or cialization has an impact on child communica- topic associative style (Bliss et al., 1999). Sec- tive functions, and the “purposeful encour- ond, African American and EA students, with agement” of particular communicative func- and without learning disabilities, produce nar- tions may be useful in a preschool classroom ratives that are comparable in terms of overall (Kasambira, 2008). structure, length, and cohesion. They differ with regard to goal-directed episodes, depending on the narrative genre, such as per- Characteristics of AAE pragmatic sonal or fictional stories, suggesting the im- language behavior portance of using more than one approach to The characteristics of AAE pragmatic lan- narrative analysis (Celinska, 2009; Champion guage behavior were described in 33 articles et al., 1995). Third, AAE speakers who learn and/or dissertations. We have learned from to dialect shift in literacy activities will do bet- these articles that African American children ter than their peers who do not dialect shift use a range of speech acts. Bridgeforth (1988) (Craig et al., 2009). Fourth, children with typ- and Hwa-Froelich et al. (2007) used similar ical language skills often make emotional in- taxonomies to examine the speech acts pro- ferences in narratives, but their counterparts duced by young African American children; with language impairments may not, support- yet, some of the results differ between these ing the importance of habitual assessment two studies, which may be a function of the (and intervention if appropriate) of children’s different data-gathering methods. There are emotional inferencing skills (Ford & Milosky, gender differences in types of functions em- 2008). Fifth, children with reading disorders, ployed by African American children (Hwa- regardless of language variation, will produce Froelich et al., 2007; Leaper et al., 1999). An fewer codas in their stories than those with example is that girls are more likely to direct typical reading abilities (Hester, 1997). Corre- actions of others or request objects and ac- sponding with the implications noted previ- tions, whereas boys are more likely to direct ously regarding developmental trends, more their own actions, collaborate with others to research is required on emotional inferenc- direct play, and call others’ attention to ob- ing, theory of mind, and perspective taking jects or events (Hwa-Froelich et al., 2007). in African American children and adolescents African American children who are speak- with and without language impairments. ers of AAE have been found to demonstrate strong emergent literacy skills (Connor & Importance and effects of family Craig, 2006) as well as the same types of con- socialization versational repair strategies that GAE-speaking Three of the reviewed articles discussed peers use (Stockman et al., 2008). Other find- findings that addressed the effects of socializa- ings identified through this systematic synthe- tion on child outcomes. What we know from sis of the literature focus primarily on two these studies can be synthesized as four main areas, cognition and narration. With regard points. First, caregivers’ emotional interactive to cognition, African American children use behaviors are linked to their children’s cog- cognitive skills to guide communicative inter- nitive and communication abilities (Wallace actions and demonstrate dialect-shifting skills et al., 1998). Second, mother–child dyads (Renn, 2010; Thompson et al., 2004). In ad- from low SES and middle SES backgrounds en- dition, African American children are more gage in play in similar ways (Hammer & Weiss, likely to demonstrate the cognitive skills of 1999). Third, male and female children may be false belief and emotional inferencing through socialized to organize narratives in particular narratives rather than provide the expected

response to false belief tasks (Curenton, 2004; that there are other articles in the extant lit- Ford & Milosky, 2008). erature, including doctoral dissertations, that African American children produce an ar- were not included in this synthesis, but that ray of narrative genres (e.g., dispute, fictional, may reveal additional behaviors and patterns fantasy, personal), and their personal narra- about African American children’s and adoles- tives have been found to include fewer words cents’ pragmatic language that could be useful and T-units than their fictional/fantasy narra- to speech–language pathologists, educators, tives (Champion, 1998; Rivers, 2001). African and others who work with this population in American children produce more fantasy or school settings and elsewhere. fictional episodes in their stories, which have The majority of studies that met inclusion been found to have a complex episodic struc- criteria for this study focused on narrative ture (Gorman et al., 2011; Rivers, 2001; macrostructure and microstructure, which Sperry & Sperry, 1996). In addition, they are important skills for developing literacy most often produce topic-centered narra- and for supporting a more natural context tives (Champion, 1995; Gee, 1989b; Hyon for assessing a child’s language. It is clear & Sulzby, 1994; Mainess et al., 2002), al- from the literature that narrative production though African American children have been is a useful context for assessing and sup- shown to produce topic associative and other porting language skills that are necessary for narrative styles. Finally, nonverbal (kinesic) literacy development in children and ado- and paralinguistic (prosodic) cues should be lescents (Hester, 19973; Schachter & Craig, closely observed for the insights they may pro- 2013; Tabors, Snow, & Dickinson, 2001; van vide about narrative cohesion skills (Garrett, Kleeck, 2008). Narrative structure, however, 1996; Hyter, 1994) and turn-taking behaviors is only one discourse type, and the gap in (Craig & Washington, 1986). The implications the literature regarding African American chil- of these findings are that AAE children and dren’s and adolescents’ pragmatics language adolescents possess the cognitive skills to use is notable with regard to the other equally im- pragmatic language to convey communicative portant components of pragmatics that can functions and to engage in oral and written affect social interactions with others, as well discourse. as successful engagement within a classroom. Those other aspects of pragmatics include DISCUSSION speech acts (DeJarnette et al., 2015; Rivers et al., 2012) that are unique expressions of This systematic review and synthesis of the the African American child and adolescent’s extant literature concerning pragmatic lan- socialization, as well as presupposition skills guage usage among African American chil- (Atlas, 2004; Bates, 1976a, 1976b; Roth & dren and adolescents covered a total of 55 Spekman, 1984a, 1984b) and related cogni- manuscripts, all of which reported at least tive skills, such as theory of mind, intention 30% of the participants as being African reading, and perspective taking. American. Ninety-two articles and disserta- Three broad areas need to be investi- tions were identified to focus on pragmatic gated further with regard to pragmatic lan- language, but only 55 (60%) of these met guage skills in African American children our inclusion criteria. We recognize that this and adolescents. The first area focuses on resulted in some relevant articles being excluded because the authors did not provide data about the proportion of children who were African American (e.g., Hyter, 2003; 3 Hyter et al., 2001) or because the study partic- The authors want to acknowledge Dr. Eva Hester who has made important contributions over the years to the ipants did not meet the inclusion criteria for literature on the pragmatic language of African American this study (e.g., Fuste-Hermann et al., 2006; children and adolescents. Dr. Hester passed away on July McCabe & Rosenthal Rollins, 1994). We note 29, 2014, after years of struggle with heart disease.

components of pragmatic language and re- r What are the trends and trajectories in the lated skills that influence pragmatic language. development of pragmatic skills for AAE This area includes narratives, speech acts, pre- child and adolescent speakers that can in- suppositions, and theory of mind. Specific re- form the development of assessment mea- search questions to address within this area sures and intervention strategies that cap- include the following: ture language use in situ? r What are evidence-based procedures and r Are there individual variations such as strategies for effectively evaluating the age and/or gender effects in pragmatic narrative processing and production skills behavior performance for AAE-speaking of African American children and adoles- children and adolescents and if so, how cents with and without language/literacy might they be accounted for in the devel- disorders? opment of ecologically sound assessment r What are the effects of contextual factors, measures and intervention practice? such as tasks, contexts, and demands, on r What are the pragmatic skill differences the spoken and written expository and displayed by AAE-speaking children and narrative productions of African Ameri- adolescents with and without communi- can children and adolescents? cation impairment? r What are comprehensive frameworks for In conclusion, the results of this system- explaining and evaluating the speech acts atic synthesis support the recommendation and presupposition skills of African Amer- that the full range of pragmatic language skills ican children and adolescents with and of typically developing African American chil- without language disorders? dren and adolescents in varied social contexts A second area of recommended focus is the and with different conversational partners identification of culture sensitive (contrastive) needs to be further explored. For many years, and noncontrastive features of the full range studies with regard to pragmatic language in of pragmatic language skills. Specific research this population have focused primarily on the questions that need to be addressed include structural and content components of narra- the following: tives. It is clear from the results of this study, r What are the contrastive and noncon- however, that African American children’ and trastive pragmatic behaviors for AAE- adolescents’ pragmatic language skills fall on speaking children and adolescents rela- a continuum. The continuum reflects that tive to GAE pragmatics? pragmatic language skills of this population r What are the cultural markers of social are manifested in different ways and occur skills development in AAE-speaking chil- with a range of conversational speakers in dren and adolescents? diverse settings and under different condi- A third area of focus for further investigations. With more knowledge and a greater tion relates to the variation, trends, and tra- understanding of these linguistic and nonlin- jectories in the development of pragmatic guistic skills, speech–language pathologists, skills to guide assessment (e.g., determining educators, and others should be better able to difference versus disorder) and intervention. distinguish language/literacy differences from Research questions in this area include the language/literacy disorders in African Ameri- following: can children and adolescents.

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