Dissecting the Relation between Language Attitudes, Language Proficiency, and Executive Functioning in African American English (AAE) / Standard American English (SAE) Bidialectal Individuals Restricted; Files Only

Abstract

African American English (AAE) is a widely spoken dialect in the United States; however, it is not the dialect most often used in academic and professional settings, wherein Standard American English (SAE) is typically preferred. AAE often faces social stigma in comparison to SAE and these negative attitudes have been linked to poorer academic outcomes, at least in children and adolescents. There is a critical need for a deeper understanding of how language bias impacts outcomes in older populations as negative attitudes towards AAE remain pervasive in higher education and professional settings. To investigate the relation between self-reported language attitudes and cognitive skills in bidialectal adult speakers of AAE and SAE, five participants completed implicit and explicit language attitudes measures alongside a series of language and executive functioning tasks. Overall, no statistically significant correlations were found. However, the directionality and strength of the observed correlation coefficients suggest preliminary evidence of a relation between more positive language attitudes and higher language proficiency but lower executive functioning skills. While more work is necessary to validate this pattern of results further, these findings contribute to our understanding of how perceptions about one’s languages are related to individual differences in one’s linguistic and non-linguistic cognitive skills.

Table of Contents

Introduction............................................................... 2

 

Methods.................................................................... 7

           Participants...................................................... 7

          Materials and Procedures................................... 7

                    Language Attitudes.................................... 7

                    Language Proficiency................................. 8

                    Executive Functioning............................... 12

           Analysis Plan..................................................... 13

Results....................................................................... 13

           Language Attitudes............................................ 14

           Language Proficiency......................................... 16

           Executive Functioning....................................... 19

           Correlations...................................................... 20

Discussion.................................................................. 21

    Language Proficiency and Executive Functioning....... 22

    Language Proficiency and Language Attitudes............ 23

    Language Attitudes and Executive Functioning........... 23

     Limitations............................................................. 24

     Implications & Conclusion....................................... 25

References................................................................... 27

About this Honors Thesis

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School	Emory College
Department	Linguistics and Psychology
Degree	B.A.
Submission	Honors Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Language, Linguistics Psychology, Experimental
Keyword	African American English Executive Functioning Bidialect
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Yamasaki, Brianna, Emory University
Committee Members	Wolff, Phillip, Emory University Britt, Erica, Emory University

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