The Acquisition of African American English by Spanish-Speaking Preschoolers

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore the phonological development of Spanish-speaking preschoolers who are acquiring African American English (AAE) in North Carolina (NC). Understanding the phonological structure of the Spanish-AAE language combination will improve diagnostic accuracy for this group of children. Method: Four Black monolingual children and four Latinx bilingual children were evaluated across morphosyntactic and phonological measures in order to determine the characteristics of AAE produced by bilingual children as compared to their monolingual AAE-speaking peers. Each bilingual participant is discussed in a case series highlighting their unique sociolinguistic variables in relation to their nonmainstream dialect use. Each bilingual child is compared to their monolingual peers across PCC-R, accuracy on early-, middle-, and late-developing sounds, and rate of phonological processes. The bilingual children from NC are then compared to their bilingual counterparts in Arizona (AZ) who do not have direct contact with AAE. Results: The bilingual children produced both phonological features and morphosyntactic features of AAE at about the same rate. They produced less types and features of AAE overall than their monolingual AAE-speaking peers. They produced the phonological features of AAE in a manner that is different from that of their monolingual peers. Their performance across measures of speech sound ability were comparable to that of their monolingual peers when dialect was accounted for in the scoring procedure. The AZ cohort produced a comparable amount of AAE phonological features as the NC cohort, indicating historical contact with AAE through Chicano English. The performance of the two groups was similar across traditional measures of phonological ability Conclusion: The majority of the bilingual children’s nonmainstream features were due to the influence of Spanish. Still, AAE appears to have a specific influence on their speech-language development. Accounting for this influence is important for achieving accurate diagnosis. The acquisition patterns demonstrated by the bilingual children in this study indicates the importance of obtaining substantial sociolinguistic information about a child’s environment from parents and teachers.