Indiana University
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Events for the week :
May 06, 2012 - May 12, 2012
Sunday
May 06
Monday
May 07

  • An Assessment of Language Attitudes towards African American Vernacular English

    Time: 10:00am - 11:00am 

    Place: Distinguished Alumni Room, Indiana Memorial Union

     

    Speakers of stigmatized varieties are often judged as less educated and less competent than speakers of prestigious varieties. This can have profound effects on speakers' academic achievement and language assessment in schools. Linguists' efforts to destigmatize AAVE have included providing commentary in media outlets, publishing scholarly works, and developing reference materials about AAVE. On a localized level, a dialect awareness course may be suitable in addressing the misrepresentation of AAVE by demonstrating that nonstandard varieties are not ungrammatical or merely slang. However, there is lack of research regarding the effectiveness of such techniques. It remains unclear whether dialect awareness courses are effective in changing attitudes towards a nonstandard variety. The current study is set up to determine attitudes of students towards AAVE by investigating the effect of a dialect awareness course on language attitudes of undergraduate students attending a large Midwestern university. During the 15-week course, the 120 students enrolled learned about the background and structure of AAVE. Topics included discussing what AAVE is, social and ideological factors affecting its representation in the media and within the African American community, distinguishing AAVE from slang, grammatical features and possible origins of AAVE, and educational approaches to teaching children whose home speech is AAVE. In the 2009-10 academic year, a questionnaire was administered to students enrolled in the dialect awareness course, and to students in a general linguistics course and a biology course. The results show that the dialect awareness course is most effective at changing student attitudes towards AAVE as a linguistic variety. Upon completion of the dialect awareness course, students perceive AAVE as a distinct dialect of English rather than as slang or incorrect English. However, the dialect awareness course had minimal effect on students' perceptions of AAVE-speakers and acceptability of AAVE use.

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    A reception will be held immediately following in Ballantine Hall Room 004

    All faculty and graduate students are encouraged to attend. As a courtesy, if you are planning on attending, please send an e-mail to the chair of the dissertation committee, Clancy Clements, to let him know you plan to be there.

     

    In category: Sociolinguistics and pragmatics

     

Tuesday
May 08
Wednesday
May 09
Thursday
May 10
Friday
May 11
Saturday
May 12



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