SOCIOECONOMIC-STATUS AND GENDER INFLUENCES ON CHILDRENS DIALECTAL VARIATIONS

This investigation compares dialect use by African American children d iffering in socioeconomic status (SES) and gender. Subjects were 5- an d 6-year-old boys (n = 30) and girls (n = 36), who were kindergartners attending schools in the Metropolitan Detroit urea. Comparisons of th e amount of dialect in the children's spontaneous discourse revealed s ystematic differences relative to SES and gender in the frequencies bu t not the forms of dialect in use. Children from lower-income homes, a nd boys, were more marked dialect users than their middle-class peers or girls. The sociolinguistic implications of the findings are discuss ed.