ABSTRACT
It is widely assumed that many African Americans are speakers of AAE (Battle, 1993; Manning & Baruth, 2000). Like other background information on AAE, in particular the specific features discussed in the prior chapter, this assumption emerged from the study of adolescent and adult speakers. Our research program has examined children's production of AAE relative to a number of potentially important influences and this chapter discusses our findings for variables that impact the extent to which students use AAE.
