Dialectal Differences Between Middle-Class Black and White Children Who do and do Not Associate with Lower-Class Black Children

Abstract

Hypothesized that middle-class boys (regardless of race) who associate with lower-class boys would be more capable of recognizing non-standard English features than middle-class boys (regardless of race) who do not associate with lower-class boys. Males ( n = 123) between the ages of 9-12 years were selected. Subjects consisted of 43 lower-class black children who were used to obtain verbal dialogues and reliability estimates. The remaining 80 subjects were middle-class boys consisting of 20 black children who associate with lower-class black children (BH); 20 white children who associate with lower-class black children (WH); 20 black children who do not associate with lower-class black children (BL); and 20 white children who do not associate with lower-class black children (WL). All subjects were required to listen to verbal dialogues and fill in the missing words. The results support the hypothesis of this study. However an unexpected finding was that race was also significant. These results are discussed in terms of parental and ideological influences on dialects.