African American Language

A pioneering 20-year longitudinal study of 67 African American children that illuminates how and why language changes in childhood.

A pioneering longitudinal study of sixty-seven African American children, this book examines language development through childhood. It provides a unique glimpse into what it means to mature from a linguistic perspective and will be a key work for advanced students and researchers in sociolinguistics.From birth to early adulthood, all aspects of a child's life undergo enormous development and change, and language is no exception. This book documents the results of a pioneering longitudinal linguistic survey, which followed a cohort of sixty-seven African American children over the first twenty years of life, to examine language development through childhood. It offers the first opportunity to hear what it sounds like to grow up linguistically for a cohort of African American speakers, and provides fascinating insights into key linguistics issues, such as how physical growth influences pronunciation, how social factors influence language change, and the extent to which individuals modify their language use over time. By providing a lens into some of the most foundational questions about coming of age in African American Language, this study has implications for a wide range of disciplines, from speech pathology and education, to research on language acquisition and sociolinguistics.