Some Observations Concerning Black Childrens' Conversations [electronic resource] / Richard L. Light.
Four nonstandard linguistic features used by five black children, ages 6-11 years, in 14 conversations were recorded and transcribed. The interviewers included male and female adults, Negro and white. The four nonstandard linguistic features were multiple negation, and absence of the Z suffixes mark...
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Full Text (via ERIC) |
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| Format: | Electronic eBook |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
[S.l.] :
Distributed by ERIC Clearinghouse,
1971.
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| Summary: | Four nonstandard linguistic features used by five black children, ages 6-11 years, in 14 conversations were recorded and transcribed. The interviewers included male and female adults, Negro and white. The four nonstandard linguistic features were multiple negation, and absence of the Z suffixes marking noun plural, possession, and the third person singular form of the verb. Results of the study show that the use of the nonstandard features depended upon: (1) the age of the child, with the youngest child reflecting a 75% occurrence, whereas the other four children showed a 28% average; (2) the presence or absence of adult interviewers, the absence of an interviewer correlating with a higher percentage of nonstandard features; and (3) the sex and race of the interviewer, with a white interviewer alone correlating with a lower percentage (21%) and a Negro interviewer correlating with a higher percentage (36%), and with the presence of a "familiar" white female correlating with a higher percentage of nonstandard forms (31%) than the presence of a white male (12%). The tapes and transcriptions of these 14 conversations are available at the Center for Applied Linguistics, Washington, D.C. (DB) |
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| Item Description: | ERIC Document Number: ED052212. |
| Physical Description: | 13 p. |
| Preferred Citation of Described Materials Note: | English Record, v21 n4 155-67 Apr 1971. |