Telling the Unknown Story Complex and Explicit Narration by African American...

Telling the Unknown StoryComplex and Explicit

Narration by African AmericanPreadolescents—PreliminaryExamination of Gender and

Socioeconomic Issues

Karen J. MainessColumbia University, New York, NY, USA

Tempii B. ChampionUniversity of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA

Allyssa McCabeUniversity of Massachusetts-Lowell, Lowell, MA, USA

This article investigates the oral personal narration of 16 African American children,8 males and 8 females. Half of the 16 children were from a low socioeconomic status(SES) and half from a middle SES background. Narratives were analyzed using depen-dency analysis and yielded the following measures: fully implicit propositions, partiallyimplicit propositions, explicit propositions, repeated propositions, internal corrections,and false starts, the highest level of proposition, and reported speech. There was a maineffect of gender and SES on the highest level of proposition articulated. Girls achieveda significantly higher level of proposition than did boys, indicating a tendency to greaterelaboration in their discourses. Of greatest interest was the finding that low SES childrenachieved a significantly higher level of proposition than did middle SES children.

Direct all correspondence to: Dr. Karen Mainess, Department of Speech–Language Pathology, School ofAllied Health Professions, Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, CA 92350, USA.E-mail: [email protected]

Linguistics and Education 13(2): 151–173. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.Copyright © 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. ISSN: 0898-5898

152 MAINESS, CHAMPION, AND MCCABE

INTRODUCTION

Storytelling has long been a vital aspect of African American life (Hurston, 1935).The African American community, like most other communities, has used narra-tives for many purposes, including moral education, entertainment, and record-ing historically or personally important events (Brewer, 1972; Craddock-Willis &McCabe, 1996; Hurston, 1935; Levine, 1977). Children learn to participate in nar-ration from an early age (Heath, 1983), and their ability to do so in a variety ofcontexts increases with interaction.

Cultural Distinctions

Some researchers have focused specifically on the development of narrativeskills in young African American children (Champion, 1998; Champion, Seymour,& Camarata, 1995; Heath, 1983; Hester, 1996; Hyon & Sulzby, 1994; Kernan,1977; Michaels, 1981). Other researchers (e.g., Heath, 1983; Michaels, 1981)emphasize the differences between narration in African American vs. EuropeanAmerican children. In the 1980s, a series of studies examined cultural differencesbetween African American and European North American children. Michaels(1981) found that young African American children told what she called topic-associating narratives during sharing time, whereas European North Americanchildren told topic-centered narratives. Topic-associating narratives recount sev-eral thematically related experiences in the same story, whereas topic-centerednarratives recount only one experience per narrative. Hester (1996) looked at thenarratives of two African American fourth-grade students and found that whilethe narratives contained both oral and literate features, the oral language stylepredominated in such features as formulaic (or repetitive) language.

A third group of researchers have found that African American and EuropeanNorth American children produce a range of narrative structures (Champion et al.,1995; Hyon & Sulzby, 1994; Peterson & McCabe, 1983), and such researchersargue that only some of that variation has to do with cultural distinctions. Thatis, not all researchers have found the differences between African American andEuropean American children to be so striking. Some researchers (Champion, 1998;Champion et al., 1995; Hyon & Sulzby, 1994) have looked at personal narrativesin conversations between two people and found that African American childrenfor the most part produce the kind of topic-centered (Michaels, 1981) or classic(Peterson & McCabe, 1983) narrative produced by European American children.They produced classic narratives at a higher rate than their European counterparts,while occasionally (less than 10% of the time) combining several episodes intoone story in a distinctive performative (topic-associating) manner.

Most of the aforementioned previous research on African American narrationwas done on young African American children. Researchers also have examined

THE UNKNOWN STORY 153

narration in African American adolescents (Labov, 1972). However, few researchers(i.e., only Hyter, 1994; Hyter & Westby, 1996; Kernan, 1977) have explored theskills of preadolescents, although this is an age where children are undergoing theimportant transition from elementary school to middle school. Kernan’s (1977)study of African American girls, aged 7–14, found that the older children elaboratedon participants’ motivation and circumstances and connected clauses more causallycompared to their younger peers. Hyter (1994) studied 12–14-year-old AfricanAmerican English-speaking boys and girls to determine how lexical, prosodic,and kinesic (gestural) features are used to indicate character identity in narrativesof a silent movie. She found that ambiguous character references were rarely pro-duced; 96 percent of the characters mentioned were clearly lexically marked. Notall children used gestures; 24 of 30 children did use gestures but these varied intype and frequency. Hyter and Westby (1996) found that preteens produced a widerange of subjective elements in narratives and they had a high level of speakerevaluative comments. In the case of one speaker the researchers focused upon, 78percent of her comments contained elements of subjectivity, speaker evaluation,and/or took the listener’s perspective into consideration (e.g., clearly distinguishingamong multiple possible female characters).

In the present article, we will explore preadolescent narration; we expect tofind that the narrative skills of preadolescents approach those of adults (Hyter &Westby, 1996). Specifically, we predict that the narratives of preadolescents willbe determined to be elaborate, largely explicit, and complex.

Limits of Past Research

To date, most of the research on African American children has been done withchildren from low-income backgrounds (Champion, 1998; Champion et al., 1995;Heath, 1983; Hester, 1996; Hyon & Sulzby, 1994; Kernan, 1977; Labov, 1972;Michaels, 1981). In studies that compare African American children from low-income families to other types of children (e.g., Hicks, 1991; Michaels, 1981), thecomparison made was usually to middle-class European North American children,confounding issues of race and class. One cannot determine from the aforemen-tioned confounded comparisons whether differences are due to class or ethnicbackground. Looking only at middle-class European Americans and lower so-cioeconomic status (SES) African Americans ignores the fact that there are manymiddle-class African Americans and many lower SES European North Americans.

Social Class: How to Assess Class Differences andImplications for Linguistic Style

The determination and implication of social class is a highly sensitive topicfor many reasons. Should one weigh the family’s current economic circumstances


and/or their educational background (especially the educational background ofthe mother) more in assigning individuals to SES classes? Should designation ofsocial class be the same for different ethnicities or different given the enormoushistorical variation in the possible economic and educational circumstances of,for example, African Americans vs. European North Americans? Probably not.Oliver and Shapiro (1997) examined the income of African Americans who hadthe same level of education as European North Americans and the same kind ofjob. For example, an African American with a graduate school education and thesame kind of job as a similarly educated European North American consistentlymade US$9,000 less than the European North American. Across SES, AfricanAmericans earned 25 percent less than their European North American counter-parts. Therefore, standard indices are biased against African Americans (Gordon,1958; Hurst, 1979). There are other issues as well. Most notably, Carter (1988)argued that whatever index of SES is used, for African Americans longevity ofemployment must be factored in.

Within a given ethnic group, class differences have long been found to affect lan-guage usage. Bernstein (1974) argued that European (and/or European American)speakers from a low SES used what he referred to as a restricted code, which waspurportedly far less explicit than the elaborated code used by middle-class speakers.Later, Hemphill (1989) examined the discourse of working- and middle-class ado-lescent European North American girls. Hemphill found that working-class speak-ers used more pronouns and fewer subordinate constructions, whereas middle-classspeakers used more specific nouns and more subordinate constructions. Hemphillargued that the working-class style reflected a greater concern for the collaborativeconstruction of meaning in conversation, while the middle-class style was morefocused on individual contributions to conversation. That is, working-class par-ticipants expected their listeners to fill in more information than did middle-classspeakers.

Hoff-Ginsberg (1991) examined the speech of working-class vs. middle-classwhite English-speaking mothers to their 18–29-month-old children. While in anumber of ways the two sets of mothers were similar, there were some significantand important differences. Specifically, middle-class mothers provided topic-conti-nuing replies to a greater proportion of their children’s utterances than did working-class mothers. Also, middle-class mothers provided significantly fewer directivesto their children, compared to the working-class mothers. Both these findings havebeen implicated in numerous studies as having an impact on child language ac-quisition (see Hampson & Nelson, 1993; Hoff-Ginsberg, 1991, for review). Topicextension facilitates language acquisition, while directives have a negative effect.

In view of these findings regarding European North Americans and class, theaforementioned confounding of race and class is particularly problematic. Re-markably, few studies have compared African Americans from diverse class back-grounds, a gap this study seeks to redress.


Gender Issues in Linguistic Style

In addition to the lack of existing research on the effect of class differences onAfrican American children’s narration, there is also a lack of exploration on howgender differences affect the narrative process. However, gender differences havebeen documented with regard to many aspects of language in general, as well asnarrative in particular. Hyde and Linn (1988) conducted a meta-analysis of numer-ous studies from which they concluded that females were generally more talkativethan males. Tannen (1990) reviews numerous findings that men and women talkin very different ways and with very different expectations from each other.

Gender differences have also been found relating to narrative discourse in par-ticular. European North American girls and their mothers included more reportedspeech (i.e., quotes) in their narratives than did boys and fathers (Ely & McCabe,1993; Ely, Gleason, Narasimhan, & McCabe, 1995; Ely, Gleason, & McCabe,1996). Prior research studies on narrative have tended to examine only AfricanAmerican boys (e.g., Labov, 1972) or African American girls (e.g., Kernan, 1977)or did not consider gender differences at all (e.g., Champion et al., 1995). In short,gender differences among African American children have received less atten-tion than those among European North Americans and are another focus of thisstudy.

Analyses of the Form of African American Narratives

The first researcher to draw attention to the personal narratives of African Amer-ican children within an educational context was Labov (1972), who documented thestructure of African American male adolescents using a particular type of analysesinvented for that purpose. Typically, a narrative began with an abstract, and wasfollowed by an orientation as to who, what, where, and when some event occurred.The narrative continued with a series of complicating actions that culminated ina crisis, or emotionally evaluated high point, that was subsequently resolved, andsometimes further topped off with a coda that returned the topic of conversation tothe present. Kernan (1977) found this same Labovian analysis to work well withthe narratives of 7- to 14-year-old African American girls. Champion et al. (1995)also conducted Labovian-based high point analysis of 6- to 10-year-old AfricanAmerican children. In addition, that study employed story grammar analysis oftheir narratives. Results indicated that the children’s narratives were complex re-gardless of which analysis was applied to them.

In short, the aforementioned research using high point analysis and/or storygrammar analysis has yielded much information about African American narration.However, other types of narrative analyses have yet to be applied to this population.For example, dependency analysis has been used exclusively with the narratives ofEuropean North American children with typical language development (Peterson


& McCabe, 1983) and language impairment (Biddle, McCabe, & Bliss, 1996;Miranda, McCabe, & Bliss, 1998).

Dependency Analysis

Deese (1984) originated the field of dependency analysis. The basic unit ofdependency analysis generally corresponds to a subject + verb + object clausestructure. Propositions and components of propositions are identified and thenarranged hierarchically. An assumption is that there is one proposition that dom-inates all other propositions in a discourse. Other propositions are subordinatedto this one and are either coordinate or subordinate to each other. For example, inthe utterance “She just spoke to her mother yesterday,” the dominant propositionis She spoke. The dependent propositions are just, to her mother, and yesterday.Crucial information that has been omitted is identified in terms of implicit propo-sitions. That is, we attempt to make implied propositions explicit in the course ofour analysis and to place these propositions in the narrative outline. The specificcontent of these propositions is not important; what is important is that we registerthe fact that some inference on the part of listeners is necessary. Dysfluencies suchas false starts and internal corrections are identified, as these can compromise theintelligibility of a discourse. Repetitions are also noted; while sometime repeti-tions serve evaluative functions (Peterson & McCabe, 1983), at other times theycan compromise the structure of discourse. Reported speech is also tracked.

Dependency analysis is particularly well-suited to the analysis of narratives ofAfrican American children because, unlike high point or story grammar analysis,it does not make an a priori assumption of an ideal schema to which children’sproductions are then compared (Peterson & McCabe, 1983). In other words, thisanalysis is appropriate for analyzing both topic-associating and topic-centerednarratives. In short, the purpose of this study was to analyze the narratives of AfricanAmerican preadolescents using dependency analysis. One goal was to determinewhether or not differences existed between the narratives produced by childrenfrom a low SES and those produced by children with middle SES backgrounds.We predict that dependency analysis will reveal that all children in this sampleproduced elaborate and, for the most part, explicit narratives. This study will alsoinvestigate gender differences affecting narrative production, with the predictionthat girls will talk at greater length resulting in greater elaboration of what they say.

METHOD

Participants

Sixteen African American children between the ages of 11(0) and 12(5) years(mean age = 11.85 years) participated in this study. Eight were male and eight


were female. Eight were from working low SES families and eight were frommiddle SES families, as defined by Carter (1988). To make this determination, thefirst author developed criteria based on the philosophy of several African Americantheorists (Dubois, 1935; Gordon, 1958; Marable, 1995), in view of the fact thatthere are no indices available that are not biased against African Americans. Onevariable that African Americans esteem highly is education—regardless of theincome that education eventually earns. All the aforementioned theorists agreethat education is highly esteemed in the African American community.

All participants were selected from two magnet schools in a single northeast-ern suburban school district. Since these were magnet schools, children from bothSES groups were found in both schools. Determiners of family SES were parentaleducation, occupation, and years on job (Carter, 1988). Parents of children inthe low SES group had a tendency to have no more than a high school educa-tion or not to be employed at the same job for 10 years or more. At least oneof the parents of children in the middle SES group tended to have 2 or moreyears of college education and/or was employed for over 10 years at the samejob.

In order to be included in this study, participants could not show any evidenceof speech–language–hearing, psychological, or physical disabilities that affectedlanguage development. That is, throughout the selection process, children withany history of special education were not included. First of all, discussion withthe principle of each school eliminated children currently enrolled in some specialeducation program. In one case, for example, only 21 of 40 African Americansixth-graders were eligible on that basis. Second, teachers were asked to reportany history of special education in the case of 60 African American childrennot currently enrolled in such programs. Teacher reports eliminated 40 percentof this pool. Finally, questionnaires were sent home to parents requesting thechild’s developmental information, educational history, and medical history, aswell as asking for parental permission to participate in the study, a confirmationof ethnicity, and socioeconomic information. Sixteen forms were not returned,making 16 children ineligible. That left 20 children. Of those, one was ineligiblebecause the parent questionnaire revealed a bicultural background.

Children who were not excluded on the basis of a reported disability, and whowere identified as being African American (not Caribbean, African, biracial, orforeign-born) were then screened using a battery of instruments that included hear-ing screening, oral peripheral screening, the Test of Nonverbal Intelligence (3rded.; TONI; Brown, Sherbenou, & Johnsen, 1997), and the Test of Language De-velopment (TOLD-2, intermediate; Hammill & Newcomer, 1988). The TONI is alanguage-free measure of abstract/figural problem solving appropriate for childrenaged 5(0) to 85(11) years. The TOLD-2 was selected because pilot testing revealedit to be the least problematic of available standardized tests of typical language. Thatis, there are only two devices for screening preadolescents and adolescents. The


first author initially employed the Adolescent Language Screening Test because ithas an adjustment for African American English and was normed on a sample thatincluded African American children. However, the participants, aged 11–12, werethe basal age for this test and pilot testing revealed that the test set them up forfailure.

Children had to score a quotient of 90 or more on both the TONI and theTOLD-2 to be included (both manuals report this quotient as the cut-off for averageperformance). The TOLD-2 had several grammatical items that were biased againstAfrican American English syntactic forms and were therefore not included in thescreening scores. Nevertheless, three children were not included because theyscored below the cutoff on the TONI and/or the TOLD-2. The 16 participantseventually selected met all inclusion criteria.

Procedure

Narrative Collection ProcessThe first author, who is African American, elicited narratives by engaging each

participant individually in a conversation. To minimize self-consciousness, sheasked children to teach her a card game. Once a child began to volunteer informationand maintain eye contact, prompts were then introduced that were a reconstructionof her personal experience. This method was adapted from prior studies (Championet al., 1995; Peterson & McCabe, 1983).

Prompt #1: Parents/trouble—When I was your age, my mother gave me per-mission to go to a friend’s house and play, but I had to come home at 5:00 hours.I lost track of time and came home 2 hours later. I got in a lot of trouble when Igot home. Did anything like that ever happen to you or someone you know? Whathappened?

Prompt #2: Accident/hospital—When I was your age, my father gave me abicycle. The first time I rode it down a hill, I crashed into a mailbox. I was hurtvery badly. I had to go to the hospital and get stitches on my head. Did anythinglike that ever happen to you or someone you know? What happened?

Prompt #3: Bugs/scared—When I was your age, I saw a big flying bug crawlinto my brother’s bathrobe. The bathrobe was laying on his bed. I tried to play atrick on him by telling him to hang up his robe. When he picked up the robe, thebug flew out. It chased us both and we were really scared. Did anything like thatever happen to you or someone you know? What happened?

Prompt #4: Mom/embarrassed—When I was your age, I was making fun of mymom. I was pretending to act like her. My brothers were laughing. When I turnedaround, she was standing behind me. Did anything like that ever happen to you orsomeone you know? What happened?

Prompt #5: Friend/secret—When I was your age, I had a best friend. I told mybest friend a secret and she told everybody. I got very upset because all of my


friends at school heard about it. I didn’t tell her anymore secrets. Did anything likethat ever happen to you or someone you know? What happened?

The same follow-up question was asked following each story:“Did anything like that ever happen to you or someone you know?” If the

response was “yes,” a second follow-up question was asked: “What happened?”These kinds of prompts were chosen because they used themes that the participantswere able to relate to easily, based on prior research (Peterson & McCabe, 1983).Each of the prompts were presented until the child produced three narratives;if the child responded to the first three prompts, Prompts #4 and #5 were notintroduced. More than the minimum number of prompts were developed becausenot all children respond equivalently to all prompts (Peterson & McCabe, 1983).The longest narrative of the three collected was selected for analysis.

Dependency AnalysisSixteen narratives (the longest narrative produced by each of 16 participants)

were analyzed according to the principles of dependency analysis (Deese, 1984;Peterson & McCabe, 1983). Dependency analysis focuses on the syntactic structureof narration and also provides the following quantitative measures:

1. Explicit propositions—propositions that do not require the listener to makeany inferences to understand the utterance (e.g., “Marissa promised shewouldn’t tell anybody.”). Note that by explicit we mean something theparticipant said; whether or not that overt statement required subsequentinferences from the listener was a separate determination.

2. Implicit propositions—the listener must infer an entire proposition to makesense of the narrative (see CAPITALIZED COMMENTS in parenthesesbelow).

3. Partial implicit propositions—some part of an utterance calls for an infer-ence (e.g., “She promised she wouldn’t tell anybody.” The listener mustinfer who “she” is).

4. Highest level of proposition (see examples below)—this variable is deter-mined by the number of levels of propositions to which it is subordinateand is thus a good index of the extent to which a child goes in elaboratingsome aspect of narration. The highest level of proposition is a measure ofthe most complex elaboration produced by the child.

5. Reported speech—quotes such as “Then she said, ‘You should stay out ofthe part and learn in front of the house.’ ”

6. Repeated propositions—propositions that essentially repeat information forno apparent evaluative reason. For example, 1.1.11 “She would teach mehow to put on my brakes” repeats 1.1.7 “And she would tell me to put onmy brakes.”


7. False starts and internal corrections—utterances that are abandoned (e.g.,“And then I, cause I had a one of those big bikes”) or corrected (e.g., “AndI put, I stopped it too fast”; from Appendix A). Note that most of these mis-takes do not get included in actually dependency analysis depicted below;That is, false starts and internal corrections not included in the dependencyanalysis are counted from raw transcriptions (othermeasures are countedfrom dependency analyses).

The goal of dependency analysis was to determine the frequency with whicheach of the aforementioned prepositional types was produced. The following is anexample of a narrative from our sample, along with a dependency analysis of it.

“Ryneeka,” female, age: 11 years and 4 months (middle SES) (topic-associatingnarrative after dependency analysis):

1. [MANY BIKE ACCIDENTS] = Most dominant proposition, which hadto be inferred because it was fully implicit.1.1. [ACCIDENT #1]

1.1.1. But when I was learning how to ride my bike = First explicitproposition

1.1.2. My cousin Shi [WAS INVOLVED] = First partially im-plicit proposition

1.1.3. She taught me how to ride my bike = second explicit propo-sition

1.1.4. When it [BIKE RIDING] was hard1.1.4.1. Really (hard)

1.1.5. She would take me to Donner Park1.1.6. And she would make me go down the hills1.1.7. And she would tell me to put on my brakes1.1.8. She would teach me how to put on my brakes = Repetition

of 1.1.71.1.9. Cause she would have her bike too

1.1.10. [SHI DEMONSTRATED HOW TO USE BRAKES]1.1.11. She would teach me how to put on my brakes = Repetition

of 1.1.71.1.12. And then I went down the hill1.1.13. And I put on the brakes1.1.14. Cause [SHIFT OF FOCUS] I had one

1.1.14.1. of those bikes1.1.14.1.1. big (bikes)

1.1.14.2. and you handle it like this (gesturing)1.1.15. I stopped it

1.1.15.1. fast (stopped)


1.1.15.1.1. too (fast) = Highest level of propo-sition achieved, with 5 indexnumbers

1.1.16. And the bike flipped1.1.16.1. over (flipped)

1.1.17. And I fell1.1.17.1. Almost (fell)1.1.17.2. (fell) in the water

1.1.18. So then we had to go home1.1.18.1. (we) all

1.2. [ACCIDENT #2]1.2.1. Then she said (2 things)

1.2.1.1. You should stay out of the park = Reported Speech(also level 4 of 5, explicit proposition)

1.2.1.2. (you should) learn [TO RIDE] in front of the house1.2.2 Because I did know

1.1.2.1. n’t (know)1.1.2.2. how to ride it

1.2.3 She was teaching me1.2.3.1. just (teaching me)1.2.3.1. (teaching me) how to ride

1.2.3.2.1. up [THE STREET]1.2.3.2.2. and down1.2.3.2.3. and up1.2.3.2.4. and down (Note that this repetition is

for evaluative, emphatic purposes)1.2.4. So when I got the hang of it

1.2.4.1 Finally1.2.5. I would go

1.2.5.1. fast1.0.0.0.1. really[1.2.5.1.1] (fast)

1.2.5.2. (go) up1.2.5.3. and (go) down

1.2.6. Then I was riding1.2.7. And I turned

1.2.7.1 (turned) fast really (fast)1.2.8. And I fell1.2.9. And these teeth came out (gesturing)1.2.10. And they were bleeding and everything1.2.11. I had cuts

1.2.11.1. (cuts) on my feet1.2.12. Cause [OF THE SANDALS, FEET WERE UNPROTECTED]


1.2.12.1. I had sandals and stuff (Rep)1.2.13. I had cuts = Repetition of 1.2.11

1.2.13.1. (cuts) on my feet and stuff = Repetition of 1.2.11.11.3. [ACCIDENT #3]

1.3.1. And then my god brother Tyrus [WAS INVOLVED]1.3.2. He was riding

1.3.2.1. (riding) up1.3.2.2. and down

1.3.3. But this was before [BEFORE NOW]1.3.4. And there use to be a tree

1.3.4.1. big (tree)1.3.5. And he fell in it [HIT THE TREE]1.3.6. And his teeth came out

1.3.6.1. two (teeth)1.3.7. He had a bunch

1.3.7.1. whole (bunch)1.3.7.2. (bunch) of blood

1.3.8. It was up1.3.8.1. all (up)1.3.8.2. (up) on the sidewalk

1.3.9. So then we had to cut the tree1.3.9.1. (cut) down

Summarizing this analysis yields the following quantitative measures:

Fully implicit 5 propositionsPartially implicit 9 propositionsExplicit 69 propositionsRepetitions 4False starts/internal corrections 8Highest level of propositions 5Reported speech 1 proposition

Reliability

Reliability was estimated using Pearson Product–Moment Correlation for allseven variables, which were quantitative. Actual data used are counts of the sevenvariables and, thus are interval measures. The first author analyzed all narrativesused in this study and a second speech–language pathologist independently con-ducted a dependency analysis on a randomly selected 94 percent of the narratives(note that 10–20% is the usual basis for estimating reliability). Reliability was esti-mated, and all correlations were significant at an alpha level of .05 or stronger, our


criterion for acceptable reliability. Findings for the consistency of scoring were asfollows:

Fully implicit r(15) = .72, p < .01Partially implicit r(15) = .57, p < .05Explicit r(15) = .62, p < .05Highest level of proposition r(15) = .69, p < .01Reported speech r(15) = .99, p < .01False starts/internal corrections r(15) = .85, p < .01Repetitions r(15) = .61, p < .05

RESULTS

As the title indicates, this study is a small sample, a preliminary investigation.For that reason, we were as eager to avoid Type II error (in which significanteffects are not found due to a lack of power) as we were to avoid Type I error(reporting erroneous significant effects). For that reason, we increased our powerto detect significant effects by choosing more powerful parametric statistics overless powerful nonparametric ones. Our small sample means that we still cannotbe sure that nonsignificant effects would remain so were a larger sample used.However, any significant effects found for our sample are dramatic enough to bedetected even on the basis of our sample.

To minimize the possibility of Type I error, we conducted very few statisticalanalyses. Specifically, we conducted seven 2 × 2 (Gender × SES) independentunivariate analyses (ANOVAs) of variance.1

There was a significant main effect of SES on our index of elaboration,F(1, 15) = 5.769, p < .034. Low SES children reached a higher level ofproposition than did middle SES children. See Table 1 for a summary of theseresults.

Table 1. Results of Dependency Analysis: SES

Outcome measures Low SES (n = 8),M (SD)

Middle SES (n = 8),M (SD)

F value(df = 1, 14)

Fully implicit 3.0 (2.56) 2.6 (2.06) 0.091Partially implicit 6.5 (3.74) 3.7 (4.36) 1.58Explicit 47.7 (7.44) 44.0 (12.43) 0.603Repetitions 2.5 (2.26) 1.0 (1.85) 2.07Internal corrections/

false starts5.5 (3.66) 2.7 (2.49) 3.25

Highest level 5.1 (0.64) 4.5 (0.53) 5.76∗Reported speech 1.4 (1.40) 2.0 (2.13) 0.429

Note: ∗p < .05.


Table 2. Results of Dependency Analysis: Gender

Outcome measures Female (n = 8),M (SD)

Male (n = 8),M (SD)

F value(df = 1, 14)

Fully implicit 3.1 (1.45) 2.5 (2.92) 0.253Partially implicit 5.2 (3.53) 5.0 (4.98) 0.013Explicit 48.5 (11.10) 43.2 (8.88) 1.18Repetitions 1.2 (1.48) 2.2 (2.65) 0.923Internal corrections/

false starts4.4 (2.56) 3.9 (4.15) 0.108

Highest level 5.1 (0.64) 4.5 (0.53) 5.76∗Reported speech 1.4 (1.40) 2.0 (2.13) 0.429

Note: ∗p < .05.

There was also a significant main effect of gender on the highest level of propo-sition articulated, F(1, 15) = 5.769, p < .034. Girls reached a higher level ofproposition than did boys. See Table 2 for a summary of results.

DISCUSSION

Dependency analysis illuminated a number of important aspects of the narration ofthe African American children in this study. Overall, these children predominantlyproduced topic-centered narratives (Champion, 1998; Michaels, 1981). However,the analysis applied equally well to the “topic-associating” sort of narrative, suchas the one produced by Ryneeka (above). Children produced narratives that, onaverage, consisted of 94.3 percent explicit propositions. Such a high level of ex-plicitness appears to challenge prior research, especially that conducted on lowSES and/or African American children (Bereiter & Engelmann, 1966; Bernstein,1962).

Narration in this sample was also very coherent in a variety of ways. There werefew repetitions or dysfluencies. As predicted, these preadolescents told narrativesas elaborate as the discourses of European North American adults that were exam-ined in a similar way (Deese, 1984; Peterson & McCabe, 1983). To our surprise,the narratives contained relatively few instances of reported speech.

Most prior research has been conducted on low SES African American chil-dren (Heath, 1983; Kernan, 1977; Labov, 1972; Michaels, 1981). In this study, lowSES African American children were compared to middle SES African Americanchildren, eliminating any confusion between race and class. The only significantSES effect was one in which low SES children actually produced more elaboratenarratives than middle SES children, as indicated by a significantly higher levelof proposition. This finding of greater elaboration on the part of low SES AfricanAmerican children seems contradictory to what has been found with older Euro-pean American girls (Hemphill, 1989); however, our definition of elaboration was


discourse-based, not the sentence-level syntax that Hemphill explored. The factthat we had a small sample and still achieved significance suggests that this is apowerful effect.

A qualitative perusal of the narratives (see Appendix A) reveals that middle SESAfrican American males tended towards terseness and extreme explicitness, as inthe following narrative, which was remarkable for being one of the few discoursesto be found completely explicit (note that the use of the pronoun it’s in 1.13 mayseem to call for inference due to its distance from the original referent—GameBoy; however in the original narrative in Appendix A, the reference is quite clear).

“Mark,” age: 11 years and 4 months (middle SES):(Dependency Analysis):

1. I lost my Game Boy1.1. I was playing with it1.2. And I was playing for a time

1.2.1. long (time)1.3. Then I fell a sleep1.4. When I woke up1.5. It was gone1.6. I thought (something)

1.6.1. at first1.6.2. somebody stole it

1.7. But then I thought (something else)1.8. My room is (many things)

1.8.1. Too big1.8.2. And too messy

1.9. So I said (X)1.9.1. It’s here

1.9.1.1. probably1.9.1.2. somewhere

1.10. So I kept on looking for it1.11. But I was mad

1.11.1. really (mad)1.11.2. (mad) that it’s gone

1.12. I’m looking for it1.12.1. still (looking)

1.13. I have found it1.13.1. n’t (found)1.13.2. yet

1.14. But I know it’s1.14.1. in my room1.14.2. somewhere


Fully implicit 0Partially implicit 0Repetitions 0Internal corrections/false starts 1Explicit 30Highest level of proposition 4Reported speech 2

Middle-class African American girls tended to be more elaborate than their malecounterparts, as is shown by the nicely elaborated but typical sample narrativesfrom this group in Appendix A.

Perhaps the clearest contrast to Mark’s extraordinarily explicit and relativelyunelaborated narrative is the following.

“Jasmine,” age 12 years and 6 months (low SES):

1. [TWO EMBARRASSING INCIDENTS]1.1. [FIRST INCIDENT]

1.1.1. And I went to this party1.1.1.1. (party) of boy

1.1.1.1.1. this (boy)1.1.1.1.1.1. (boy) named John

1.1.1.2. (boy) in classroom1.1.1.2.1 my (classroom)

1.1.2. [BACKGROUND INFORMATION]1.1.2.1. And it was like December fifth

1.1.3. We went to the rink1.1.3.1. skating (rink)

1.1.4. To his party (John)1.1.5. And I tripped him1.1.6. And I did a split

1.1.6.1. With roller skates1.1.6.1.1. Those (roller skates)1.1.6.1.2. (skates) on

1.1.7. And everybody was dying [CLASSMATES LAUGHING]1.1.8. And I felt embarrassed

1.1.8.1. so (embarrassed)1.1.9. And I did skate

1.1.9.1. (did)n’t1.1.9.2. (skate) until1.1.9.3. like 10 minutes

1.1.9.3.1. (10 minutes) later


1.1.10. I was hurting1.1.0.1. (hurting) too

1.2. And then [INTRODUCING SECOND INCIDENT]1.2.1. time I went

1.2.1.1. one (time)1.2.1.2. (went) at night

1.2.2. [BACKGROUND INFORMATION]1.2.2.1. From eight to eleven [TIME SKATING EVENT WAS

HELD]1.2.3. Yeah and my friend

1.2.3.1. Sheila (my friend)1.2.4. She fell1.2.5. And she ripped her pants1.2.6. Said [MADE RIPPING NOISE TO ILLUSTRATE]1.2.7. Everybody was laughing1.2.8. It was funny

1.2.8.1. So (funny)1.2.9. She started crying [Sheila]

1.2.10. She did1.2.11. I was like “don’t cry”1.2.12. So then I told her

1.2.12.1. To wrap her jacket1.2.12.1.1. (jacket) around her

1.2.13. Then she started skating1.2.13.1. (skating) again

1.2.14. It was fun though

Fully implicit 4Partially implicit 6Repetitions 0Internal corrections/false starts 2Highest level of proposition 6Reported speech 1

Jasmine’s narrative is one of the most elaborate ones in this study. She reachesthe most complex level of proposition at the very beginning, where she takes greatpains to orient us to the host of the party she attended. Jasmine is typical of thelow SES children in this study, who on average produced narratives of greatercomplexity in this regard than did their middle SES counterparts (see Appendix Afor other narratives typical of each of the four groups in our study). Jasmine is alsotypical of girls in this study, who produced more complex narratives than did boys.Our research supports and extends past research on African American children’s


narration, which also found that girls tended to produce more elaborate narratives(Champion, 1998; Hyter, 1994; Hyter & Westby, 1996).

This preliminary study of the discourse of African American preadolescents hasrevealed that gender and SES both impact the variable with the longest history ofstudy in the field of research on discourse and SES, namely, the index of elaborationprovided using the highest level of proposition in dependency analysis. Futureresearch would extend our approach to include a larger sample of data and, wealso hope, of participants. Perhaps such larger samples would reveal significanteffects on the other dependent variables we explored.

In conclusion, this study is the first to examine adolescent discourse usingdependency analysis. It is also the first to use dependency analysis with AfricanAmerican participants. Dependency analysis illustrated the rich and diverse narra-tive abilities of these African American children. Its use was particularlywarranted because, unlike many alternative narrative analyses (see Peterson &McCabe, 1983), dependency analysis has no a priori ideal schema to whichchildren’s narrative productions are compared. Future researchers may find it use-ful to analyze the narratives of other diverse groups with dependency analysisbecause of its applicability to a variety of types of discourse and its freedom frompotentially culture-bound assumptions of what an ideal narrative should be.

Appendix A

A.1. Exemplary Narratives From Middle SES Girls(S = Participant, E = Interviewer)

A.1.1. Narrative 1: Ryneeka (11 Years and 4 Months, Middle SES)

S: No, but when I was learning how to ride my bike/E: Uh huhS: My cousin Shi, she taught me how to ride my bike/Right, when it was really

hard, she would take me to Donner Park/And she would make me go downthe hills/And she would tell me to put on my brakes/She would teach mehow to put on my brakes/’cause she would have her bike too/

E: Uh huhS: So she would teach me how to put on, put on the brakes/And then I went

down the hill/And I put on the brakes/And then I, ’cause I had a, one ofthose big bikes and you handle it like this (gestures to show how to use handbrakes)/And I and I put, I stopped it too fast/And the bike flipped over/AndI almost fell in the water/

E: HmmS: So then we all had to go home/then she said “You should stay out of the park

and learn in front of the house”/Because I didn’t know how to ride it/OK,


so then we jus um, she was just teaching me how to ride up and down, upand down/So when I finally got, got the hang of it, I would go really, reallyfast up and down/Then I was riding and I turned really fast and I fell/Andthese two teeth came out (pointing to her mouth)/And they were bleedingand everything/I had a cuts on my feet/’Cause I had sandals and stuff/I hadcuts on my feet and stuff/And then my uh god brother Tyrus, he was ridingup and down/But this was before/And there use to be a big tree/And he fellin it/And his two teeth came out/He had a whole bunch of blood/It was allup on the sidewalk/So then we had to cut down the tree/

A.1.2. Narrative 2: Irene (12 Years and 5 Months, Middle SES)Um hm (laughing). Happened to me (laugh)/We were supposed to be home/

There’s this lady around the corner/And we go to her house a lot/But she’s likeolder and gives us like advice and stuff/And she goes to our church/And she, wewas over there/And my mom says, “Um, Just be home at” um like, yeah. Shewas like, “You be home at nine thirty.”/And we and we called and she was like,“Call your mother and tell her we’re in a deep discussion and we need to staylonger.”/And we called and she said, “OK”/So I was like “Don’t call her, she’sgonna say, ‘No’ ”/They were like, “But you could just try”/I was like, “No, I knowmy mother. She’s not gonna say yes”/Then we came home and she’s like “I don’tknow why I let you guys stay”/I was like “Mom I told them don’t call you” (laugh)/Iwas like, “I said, ‘Com on, we’ll finish the conversation another day.’ ”/But shewas like, “Yeah, I knew I should have told you to just come straight home becauseyou have so much to do” (laugh)/Got in trouble/And if we go to the mall, and wedon’t call home, we’re in trouble/Because then they get worried about us./

A.2. Exemplary Narratives From Middle SES Boys

A.2.1. Narrative 3: Mark (11 Years and 4 Months, Middle SES)Yes, I lost my Game Boy/I was playing with it/And I was playing for a long

time/Then I fell asleep/When I, I woke up, it was gone/At first I thought somebodystole it/But then I thought, “My room is too big and too messy.”/So I said, “It’sprobably here somewhere.”/So I kept on looking for it/But I was really mad thatit’s gone/I’m still looking for it/I haven’t found it yet,/but I know it’s in my roomsomewhere.

A.2.2. Narrative 4: Tyrone (11 Years and 8 Months, Middle SES)Yeah, I, I snuck a chicken nugget out of the kitchen once/And Mom say me/And

I got in trouble/She said, “You don’t sneak” and stuff/So I got yelled at/But I stillsneak stuff sometimes/I don’t think she knows (laugh).


A.3. Exemplary Narratives From Low SES Girls

A.3.1. Narrative 5: Jasmine (12 Years and 6 Months, Low SES)Um, um, and um I went to this party of this boy named John in my classroom.

And it was like December fifth. We went to the skating rink, to his party. AndI tripped him and I did a split with those roller skates on. And everybody wasdying. And I felt so embarrassed. And I didn’t skate like until like 10 minutes later.(laugh). I was hurtin’ too. And then . . . my friend—one time I went at night . . .

and my friend Sheila, she she fell and she ripped her pants, said (MADE RIPPINGNOISE). Everybody was laughing. I was so funny (laughing). She started crying.She did. I was like, “Don’t cry.” So then I told her to wrap her jacket around her.Then she started skating again . . . It was fun though.

A.3.2. Narrative 6: Dionne (11 Years and 9 Months, Low SES)Me and my, my um, my cousin, we were on the, um, you know those bars that

be in the closet that you hang your clothes up on?/Um (giggle), me, me, my cousinand my sister/We were on those, We were swinging on them/because we knew howto climb and flip through them/So we were doing that/And then my cousin, shejust went and told on us/But she didn’t tell that she was doing it too/And then wegot in trouble/And she got three or four brothers/And her mom was there/And thenmy mom just, um we got it/But in front of all of them/And then, she she didn’t getin trouble/And we tried to tell them that it was her too/But they wouldn’t believeus/We got mad/We got mad at her and we wouldn’t talk/Because we had (giggle),we had this club or something that, it was/I don’t know but I told her that, we toldher that she couldn’t be in anymore/Because we were supposed to tell the truth inthe club or something/And we told her that she couldn’t be in it/And my mom gotmad about that/So we got, she said that if she couldn’t be in it, then we can’t havethe club no more/We just had to bring her in it./

A.4. Exemplary Narratives From Low SES Boys

A.4.1. Narrative 7: Jovoni (11 Years and 8 Months, Low SES)Oh yeah, cause we had a basketball game upstairs/And kids was like, “We gonna

beat y’all” and other stuff/So then they lost and they was like (sucked his teeth)“We let . . . ”/Oh yeah ’cause we was in Maryland/Oh yeah, I’m talking abouta different time/Forget this time/We was in Maryland, right?/And these NorthCarolina kids that was at my cousins/They was like, whenever me and my brotheror me and my cousin win/They say, “We let y’all win, We let ya’ll win”/Becausethey kept saying, “We gonna beat ya’ll’s behind”/“We let y’all win, We let y’allwin”/I was like (sucked his teeth) “All right, whatever”/I don’t like when peopledo that/Then they lose and they be like, “Man, man look how little we are”/But wewon (laughing).


A.4.2. Narrative 8: Malik (12 Years and 6 Months, Low SES)My worst was at the football, right?/’Cause I was at the football game/and um,

my grandma, she standing um, she sitting in the bleachers watching my game/Andthen, and then I got hit/But I tried to like play it off/’Cause I got hit over to thecheerleaders/So I tried to play it off/And then, uh, I w, I was gonna ask one ofthem to help me, like that/Um so my mom, then she she bust through the wholething/And then they called . . . /My grandma she, she—that’s when she was likeyounger/She came, she came through the whole thing/She ran, she um threw, ranup the bleachers/But she didn’t run like fast or anything/And she pushed everybodyout the way/“That’s my son! That’s my baby!” (laughing)/I was so embarrassed/Sowhat I did was I um, I faked a leg injury/I did it ’cause I didn’t want to play/I wasjust so embarrassed/I faked a leg injury, acted like my leg was hurting/And, andso they found out that my leg was all right/And then I started saying like, “I toldyou, my aunt told you. I feel better.” Like that/And then and so um I won’t haveto play football/So I had to, I had to though, ’cause I was ashamed to come back.They would a been like, “Momma’s boy” or something about Mom.

NOTE

1. Note that this meant that 21 statistical decisions were made: seven for SES, seven for gender,and seven for interactions between these two. We conducted a Bonferroni correction to minimizeType I error in which we gave more liberal alphas to the highest level of proposition—our index ofelaboration—because ever since Bernstein (1974), elaboration would be the variable most likely toregister SES effects. Observed probability of the two significant effects on this dependent variablewas <.05, so it is not likely that Type I errors are involved. Such differential treatment of dependentvariables is permissible, even advisable (Tabachnick & Fidell, 1998).

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