title: Approximations of selected standard English sentences by speakers of black English.
abstract: The purpose of this study was to investigate the changes in six selected linguistic features as a function of age among children from the North Texas area who utilized features of black English in their oral language. A total of 48 children were tested, with eight selected from each chronological age group from four through nine years. Each subject's sole task was to imitate a series of Standard English sentences. The results indicated that, while a gradual decrease in black English characteristics occurred as a function of age, there was a tendency for the most pronounced dialectal decline in the language of the subjects to occur between six and seven years of age for most of the linguistic features. However, it was observed that black English caracteristics did not completely disappear from the surface structure of even the oldest subjects in the study.
mesh_terms: D001741:Black or African American; D000367:Age Factors; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008037:Linguistics; D013781:Texas