Ways Of Examining Speech Acts In Young African American Children: Considering Inside-Out And Outside-In Approaches

Keywords

communicative functions; English speakers; language behavior; pragmatic behavior; speech acts; young African American

Abstract

To develop a framework for further study of pragmatic behavior in young children from African American English (AAE) speaking backgrounds, one aspect of pragmatic behavior is explored in this article, specifically, speech acts. The aims of this article are to (1) examine examples of how external taxonomies (i.e., an "etic" or "outside-in" approach) have been applied to the speech act behavior of AAE child speakers and to note that etic approaches alone do not identify cultural characteristics that influence the presentation of speech acts in this population; (2) conceptualize a culture-sensitive framework where components of AAE speech act behaviors can be identified as gleaned from existing linguistic research; and (3) explain the utility of analyses of speech act behavior using taxonomies that have emerged from the cultural language style of AAE speakers, that is, an "emic" or "inside-out" approach.

Publication Date

2-6-2015

Publication Title

Topics in Language Disorders

Volume

35

Issue

1

Number of Pages

61-75

Document Type

Article

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1097/TLD.0000000000000042

Socpus ID

84922311387 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/84922311387

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