<p><strong>Background and aim: </strong>According to the most recent curriculum for the Swedish upper secondary school1, the students should be able to differentiate between British and American English. Furthermore, they should be able to keep to one of the varieties, as this is a prerequisite of writing correct texts in English. In the present thesis, young Swedes’ awareness of grammatical differences between British and American standard English and which variety they use are investigated. The investigation is conducted by means of a questionnaire. The questionnaire was composed of three parts. The first part consisted of sentences written in English that the informants had to judge as written prevailingly in British or American English. In the second part, the informants had to translate sentences from Swedish to English, and then judge them as British or American. The third part of the questionnaire comprised questions concerned with language use and attitude, as well as questions on basic information such as the informants’ age, education and mother tongue.</p><p><strong>Results and conclusions:</strong> Nine informants fulfilled the inclusion criteria. The informants’ judgments of the sentences in English suggest that they are not entirely able to differentiate between British and American English. Moreover, their translations of the Swedish sentences indicate that the informants mix British and American English. Furthermore, they are not aware of which variety they use and the majority does not know whether they prefer British or American English. In addition, the findings could support the emergence of Euro-English, a Mid-Atlantic variety. </p>

This study investigated the effectiveness of two methods of accent modification instruction. Thirty nonnative English speakers received an intonational-based instruction method for the pronunciation of American English. Half of those speakers received additional instruction and activities that were based on theories of cognitive processing of language. Three expert listeners evaluated pre- and post-instruction recordings of each speaker. Listeners were asked to rate the use of speech characteristics determined to be instrumental for intelligible speech on a 5-point Likert scale and three yes/no responses. As a whole, the intonational-based instruction method resulted in significant increases in the use of positive speech characteristics. A modification of that method did not result in significant differences in any of the speech characteristics. Findings of this study support the focus on suprasegmentals in pronunciation training of English as a second language and may lead to more diverse methods and designs for accent modification research. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Wichita State University, College of Health Professions, Dept. of Communication Sciences and Disorders / "December 2005." / Includes bibliographic references (81-95)

Thesis (M.A.)--Indiana University, 2008. / Title from screen (viewed on August 28, 2009). Department of English, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). Advisor(s): Steve Fox, Thom Upton, Susan Shepherd. Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 114-116).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2007. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 176-187).

This is a qualitative study that explores the ways in which African American English (AAE) speakers understand and use their own language. The study is based on 10 individual interviews with participants who self-identified as fluent speakers of AAE and Mainstream American English (i.e., Standard English). Participants shared personal examples, stories, and disclosures as a way to expose the meaning and interpretations of AAE in context and to reveal how it functions in their everyday lives. The purpose of this study is to increase awareness and appreciation of AAE and its relationship to the formation and preservation of individual and group identities. The literatures and the interview data reveal that, to think negatively about the way African Americans articulate their thoughts is, in fact, not just dismissing their speech form, but their history, culture, community and ultimately, the way they make sense of and maneuver in the world.

Background and aim: According to the most recent curriculum for the Swedish upper secondary school1, the students should be able to differentiate between British and American English. Furthermore, they should be able to keep to one of the varieties, as this is a prerequisite of writing correct texts in English. In the present thesis, young Swedes’ awareness of grammatical differences between British and American standard English and which variety they use are investigated. The investigation is conducted by means of a questionnaire. The questionnaire was composed of three parts. The first part consisted of sentences written in English that the informants had to judge as written prevailingly in British or American English. In the second part, the informants had to translate sentences from Swedish to English, and then judge them as British or American. The third part of the questionnaire comprised questions concerned with language use and attitude, as well as questions on basic information such as the informants’ age, education and mother tongue. Results and conclusions: Nine informants fulfilled the inclusion criteria. The informants’ judgments of the sentences in English suggest that they are not entirely able to differentiate between British and American English. Moreover, their translations of the Swedish sentences indicate that the informants mix British and American English. Furthermore, they are not aware of which variety they use and the majority does not know whether they prefer British or American English. In addition, the findings could support the emergence of Euro-English, a Mid-Atlantic variety.

The overarching purpose of both dissertation studies is to contribute to the extant literature base on language assessment in the context of poverty and African American English (AAE) dialect. Language assessment with culturally and linguistically diverse populations, in particular children who speak AAE, has been a longstanding challenge for professionals in the field of speech-language pathology despite the preponderance of scholarly attention this topic has received. The purpose of the first study is to conduct a systematic review of the literature to synthesize the existing literature on AAE from the past approximately three and a half decades, to identify aspects of language and assessment approaches that have been most informative for identifying language impairment in this population. The purpose of the second study is to examine the grammaticality judgments of school-age, AAE-speaking children as a function of their nonmainstream dialect density and language ability. Data for this study came from 273 African American children from low-income backgrounds who were participants in a larger project focused on language and literacy outcomes for children reared in urban areas. the relationship between language ability and dialect density was explored using correlational analysis and the contribution of language ability and dialect density on grammaticality judgments was analyzed using multiple regression. Finally, a multivariate analysis of variance was conducted to investigate the impact of dialect density and language ability on various items that differed in grammatical constructions. Results from both studies are discussed relative to the existing oral language profiles of AAE speakers and the impact of linguistic variation on assessment. Together, these papers contribute to the extant literature by supporting the development of a more comprehensive profile of AAE and increasing the field's understanding of language assessment and language impairment in child AAE speakers.

Research on the dialects of English spoken within the United States shows variation regarding lexical, morphological, syntactic, and phonological features. Previous research has tended to focus on one linguistic variable at a time with variation. To incorporate multiple variables in the same analysis, this thesis uses a latent class analysis to perform a cluster analysis on results from the Harvard Dialect Survey (2003) in order to investigate what phonetic variables from the Harvard Dialect Survey are most closely associated with each dialect. This thesis also looks at how closely the latent class analysis results correspond to the Atlas of North America (Labov, Ash & Boberg, 2005b) and how well the results correspond to Joshua Katz's heat maps (Business Insider, 2013; Byrne, 2013; Huffington Post, 2013; The Atlantic, 2013). The results from the Harvard Dialect Survey generally parallel the findings of the Linguistic Atlas of North American English, providing support for six basic dialects of American English. The variables with the highest probability of occurring in the North dialect are ‘pajamas: /æ/’, ‘coupon: /ju:/’, ‘Monday, Friday: /e:/’ ‘Florida: /ɔ/’, and ‘caramel: 2 syllables’. For the South dialect, the top variables are ‘handkerchief: /ɪ/’, ‘lawyer: /ɒ/’, ‘pajamas: /ɑ/’, and ‘poem’ as 2 syllables. The top variables in the West dialect include ‘pajamas: /ɑ/’, ‘Florida: /ɔ/’, ‘Monday, Friday: /e:/’, ‘handkerchief: /ɪ/’, and ‘lawyer: /ɔj/’. For the New England dialect, they are ‘Monday, Friday: /e:/’, ‘route: /ru:t/’, ‘caramel: 3 syllables’, ‘mayonnaise: /ejɑ/’, and ‘lawyer: /ɔj/’. The top variables for the Midland dialect are ‘pajamas: /æ/’, ‘coupon: /u:/’, ‘Monday, Friday: /e:/’, ‘Florida: /ɔ/’, and ‘lawyer: /ɔj/’ and for New York City and the Mid-Atlantic States, they are ‘handkerchief: /ɪ/’, ‘Monday, Friday: /e:/’, ‘pajamas: /ɑ/’, ‘been: /ɪ/’, ‘route: /ru:t/’, ‘lawyer: /ɔj/’, and ‘coupon: /u:/’. One major discrepancy between the results from the latent class analysis and the linguistic atlas is the region of the low back merger. In the latent class analysis, the North dialect has a low probability of the ‘cot/caught’ low back vowel distinction, whereas the linguistic atlas found this to be a salent variable of the North dialect. In conclusion, these results show that the latent class analysis corresponds with current research, as well as adding additional information with multiple variables.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / This thesis began, as I imagine most theses do, as a very formal and very orthodox research paper. While it continues to be this to a measurable extent, it has undergone a metamorphosis. In these pages I discuss the serious challenges faced in schools (as well as the setbacks endured inside their walls) by native-English speaking children of all cultures and creeds, who speak forms of English other than Standard English (hereafter SE) in their homes and with their family and friends. I then contrast these challenges with the stark advantages enjoyed by children who, due likely to their inherited socio-economic class, make regular use of SE inside their residences and with their peers and relations. One non-standard dialect of English found in widespread use by young boys and girls in the United States is African American English (hereafter AAE). Because success in U.S. schools depends heavily on students’ production and comprehension of SE, those youngsters who already employ SE as their principal language are at an immediate educational advantage, one that is, by default, not afforded to children who as a rule speak a dialect/language other than SE, such as AAE. Within these pages you will find an official statement made by the TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) Executive Committee that soundly validates African American English as a true, rule-governed linguistic system, and thus a language. I also discuss my view that to devalue a child’s language in school, by not validating it as true, operative speech—“Don’t talk that way, that’s wrong!”—is, in essence, to devalue the whole child. It is an act that will be perceived negatively and reacted to negatively by most children. In addition to these issues, I discuss the prevalence of AAE in American society at large, as well as its prevalent use by non-African American youth.

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