The purpose of this investigation was to examine the underlying factors related to dialect awareness in second, third, and fourth grade students. Eighty-seven students were administered measures of written and spoken dialect usage, dialect awareness, executive functioning, metalinguistic awareness, and language ability. Performance on each measure was analyzed to determine whether differences were seen by dialect usage group (strong, some, or no variation from Mainstream American English). Students who used the least amounts of morphsyntactic non-Mainstream American English features outperformed their peers on all measures. Correlational analyses showed that increased performance on measures of executive functioning, metalinguistic awareness, and language was significantly related to increased performance on dialect awareness tasks. Hierarchal multiple regression analyses showed that language skills accounted for most of the variation in dialect awareness performance, while cognitive shifting and blending abilities accounted for an additional small amount of variance. While dialect awareness is a complex task to measure, clinical implications of this investigation suggest that strong overall language abilities are needed to successfully increase dialect awareness. Students who are having difficulty with dialect awareness may benefit from a program that addresses these skills explicitly, while also targeting overall language. / A Dissertation submitted to the School of Communication Science and Disorders in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of
Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2012. / June 26, 2012. / African American English, dialect awareness, executive functioning, metalinguistic awareness / Includes bibliographical references. / Kenn Apel, Professor Directing Dissertation; Richard Wagner, University Representative; Shurita Thomas-Tate, Committee Member; Carol McDonald Connor, Committee Member; Ramonda Horton-Ikard, Committee Member.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_182932 |
| Contributors | Johnson, Lakeisha (authoraut), Apel, Kenn (professor directing dissertation), Wagner, Richard (university representative), Thomas-Tate, Shurita (committee member), Connor, Carol McDonald (committee member), Horton-Ikard, Ramonda (committee member), School of Communication Science and Disorders (degree granting department), Florida State University (degree granting institution) |
| Publisher | Florida State University, Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, text |
| Format | 1 online resource, computer, application/pdf |
| Rights | This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). The copyright in theses and dissertations completed at Florida State University is held by the students who author them. |
Page generated in 0.0019 seconds