Meghan Othick

Language samples were ehcited from young and older Afucan American adults dunng two phases of an mterv1ew The fonnal phase was conducted m standard Enghsh and mcluded vocabulary and memory span tests whereas the mformal phase was conducted m Black English Vernacular by a different mterviewer, s1ID1lar questions about the participants' background were asked m the two phases The analysis compared the length, grammatical complexity, semantic content, and use of BEV m the participants' responses to the interviewers' questions m the formal versus tnf ormal phases Age group differences were observed m both the formal and informal language samples The shift from formal to informal mterv1ew resulted m codeS\li1tchmg by both groups of parttc1pants both groups increased their use of BEV dunng the informal phase Young adults, however, were somewhat more successful at code-switch.mg between standard English and BEV smce they vutually ehmmated BEV from their speech dunng the formal p...

This study used a referential communication task to investigate the effectiveness of elderspeak, a speech register targeted at older listeners. the tasks required the listener to reproduce a route drawn on a city map or dot pattern following the speaker's instructions. In the current variant of the task, listeners were prohibited from interrupting or questioning the speakers. Dyads of young-young,