African American Communication Research Articles

Co-cultural Communicative Practices of African American Women Seeking Depression Care.

African Americans face unique communication challenges when interfacing with the health care system that has a history of discrimination and power differentials. In response to the trifecta of race, class, and gender oppression when seeking health care, African American women make critical decisions regarding how to communicate during the clinical encounter for depression care. The purpose of this study was to use focused ethnography to explore the co-cultural communicative practices that African American women use when seeking depression care. The concept of intersectionality was used to contextualize 5 domains that explained the depth and breadth of African American women's experiences and communication strategies when seeking care for depression.

Articulating the Heuristic Value of African American Communication Studies

In an effort to address the contemporary relevance of African American communication, this essay explores the impetus, heuristic value, foundational premises, and proliferation of this burgeoning field that has come to be known as African American Communication, by attending to two inextricable themes underlying much of African American Communication research: body politics and otherness.

The Bad Boy of Radio: The Continuity and Extension of African American Communication Dynamics Through Talk Elements of the Michael Baisden Radio Show

This study sought to examine the continuity and extension of African American communication characteristics in the talk elements (the host, guest, and callers) of the Michael Baisden Radio Show by exploring the specific oral practices that characterize talk elements of Black radio as well as the way(s) these practices related to the African American oral tradition. The African American communication characteristics of the vernacular use of language, humor, empathetic understanding, and community harmony are readily apparent in this research. The findings of this research also support the idea that when motivated by the power of the spoken word, listeners respond to the call of their radio griot.

Media Literacy, "Thinking Television," and African American Communication

This essay is a critical, reflexive engagement with the practice, politics and pedagogy of a student centered media literacy project titled `thinking television.` Written as a theoretical diagnostic, the essay examines the project's value-providing a new vocabulary for democratic communication-and drawbacks, the restrictive nature of narrative possibilities around race in the student projects.

Adolescent Sexual Debut

African American adolescents mature earlier and have their sexual debut (first voluntary penile-vaginal penetration) earlier in adolescence and thus are at a disproportionately greater risk for more sexual partners, STIs, unwanted pregnancies, abortions, and adolescent motherhood and fatherhood despite rate reductions for other adolescents over approximately the past 20 years. Although the focus of most studies has been mothers' influence in adolescents' reproductive health, fathers' influence has been found to make a difference. However, the influence of African American fathers' reproductive health communication has not been addressed. Not only could much be revealed in exploring the influence of African American fathers' reproductive health communication, but these findings could guide interventions, thus reducing African American adolescents' reproductive health morbidity.

Communicative Functions of African American Head Start Children

Children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds are more often over- and underreferred for special education services than children from the mainstream culture. In fact, African American children, particularly boys, are more likely to be expelled from preschool programs. Differences in African American communication styles may be misinterpreted and consequently lead to frustration and conflict. Yet, little research had documented typical pragmatic development in African American preschool children. In this study, 12 African American Head Start children were videotaped during play, and their pragmatic communicative functions were analyzed. Significant differences were found in the types of communicative functions used by African American boys as compared to girls.

Challenging Norms of Invention: Mimesis and African American Communication Patterns

Objective: To challenge norms of rhetorical invention by examining and enacting African American communication patterns Course: Basic Course, Public Speaking, Argumentation, Intercultural Communication, African American Rhetoric

Book Review: African American English: A Linguistic Introduction; African American Communication: Exploring Identity and Culture

Book Review: African American English: A Linguistic Introduction; African American Communication: Exploring Identity and Culture

CULTURAL BASIS OF LINGUISTIC STYLE

CULTURAL BASIS OF LINGUISTIC STYLE

Strategies to improve rural african american (AA) participation in stroke prevention research

Background: Rural communities and AAs historically have distrust of both doctors and researchers. These populations have high rates of CVD and are not knowledgeable about stroke prevention strategies. Hypothesis: Rural AAs are likely to attend and benefit from stroke projects using culturally compatible recruitment and research methods. Methods: Focus groups (facilitated discussions) were held to assess knowledge of stroke and education on stroke prevention. Recruitment of rural AA WV participants was evaluated following a number of strategies including mailings, announcements and invitations by community leaders. Results: Participants responded (46%) to personal invitations from community leaders rather than community announcements or mailings. AAs were comfortable with a culturally congruent format (focus groups) as it allowed them to share their knowledge. Higher attendance rates were noted for sessions held in private settings. Twenty-five percent of participants spontaneously asked to participate in future research projects. Conclusion: Use of focus groups as a social and narrative method more culturally compatible with AA communication and interaction patterns should enhance their research participation and satisfaction. A positive research experience as well as education about the need for minority involvement may encourage participation in future studies.

Redefining femininity: Call and response as gendered features in African-American discourse

In this paper I discuss the use of one of the most unique African-American communicative strategies of call and response as a marker of socially constructed gender among the members of a church committee. The data come from my fieldwork conducted in Ypsilanti, MI in 1999. Call and response, a minimal response, traditionally derives from the Black church. Nowadays, however, it constitutes a legitimate feature of the African-American communication system (Dandy 1991). The traditional sociolinguistic research draws a clear distinction in the use of minimal responses by white women and men and by African-American females and males. Cameron (2000) claims that it is rather a consistent research finding that men use minimal responses significantly less often than women. Stanback (1985), on the other hand, demonstrates that the most striking evidence of communicative asymmetry in African-American discourse is the black women's greater silence in their conversations with black men. One aspect of this silence is fewer minimal responses, including call and response. Most of the traditional sociolinguistic analyses, however, did not interpret the minimal responses in the framework of the goals they served, neglecting the interlocutors' roles in the interactions. This paper, adopting the social constructionist view on gender, aims to reveal how the minimal response of call and response may function as a diagnostic of power in a secular context. The assumption is that the use of call and/or response assigns different (asymmetrical, i. e., powerful or powerless) statuses to the interlocutors in an interaction. This analysis demonstrates how a call and a response take on gendered meanings, i. e., how they are symbolically associated with a masculine or feminine way of speaking in the setting analyzed.

In the deep valley with mountains to climb: exploring identity and multiple reacculturation

It is rare to find studies that focus on the multiple reacculturation of travelers who regularly alternate residences between their homeland and a host foreign country. These travelers are best described as intercultural transients. It is difficult to exactly say how many transients exist today because of the lack of accurate data. What is clear, however, is that the number is increasing because of improved global transportation and the large economic gaps between nations (World Telecommunications Development Report, Author, 1994). In an effort to extend general knowledge as well as consequences of intercultural adjustment, this conceptual-theoretic study facilitates understanding of the complex experience of these individuals who live on cultural borders negotiating both frequent cultural transitions and their cultural identities (Cultural Studies, Routledge, New York, 1992, pp. 96–116; Communication and Identity Across Cultures, Sage, Newbury Park, CA, 1998, pp. 34–55). Within this essay, first, we review the acculturation and reacculturation literature within the discipline of communication and note what is missing in this literature. Then, we present a new concept called “cyclical curves” to explain multiple reentry. Additionally, we offer one example of a typical intercultural transient's experience followed by a proposed taxonomy of intercultural transients. Also, we review several theoretical notions that help us understand the process of identity negotiation experienced by intercultural transients, while identifying coping strategies that may facilitate identity negotiation. Finally, we re-introduce a theory that has only recently emerged in intercultural communication studies—cultural contracts theory (African American Communication: Exploring Identity and Culture, 2nd Edition, Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ, 2002; Communities, Creations, and Contradictions: New Approaches to Rhetoric for the Twenty-first Century, Michigan State University Press, East Lansing, MI, in press-a; Commun. Quarterly, 50(4) (2002); Howard J. Commun. 12(4) (2002) 43–57; J. Rural Commun. Psychol. E4(1). [Online Journal]. http://www.marshall.edu/JRCP/)—to conceptually frame the ontological nature and problems confronted by transients.

Exploring African American Identity Negotiation in the Academy: Toward a Transformative Vision of African American Communication Scholarship

Within this article, I have three simple objectives: to explain (1) where we are as African American communication researchers, (2) how we arrived at this point, and (3) where we should go from here. In explaining where we are, I assess the state of African American communication research. Then I introduce the cultural contracts paradigm to facilitate strategies of transformation and gradual agency over the politics of identity, which continue to restrict African American communicology. Finally, I discuss both my visions and an agenda for the future of African American communication research.

Dessentializing Difference: Transformative Visions in Contemporary Black Thought

Contemporary African American communication scholarship has produced a number of theoretical perspectives that enlarge our understanding of the intellectual and cultural dimensions of identity, difference, and diversity. This article offers dialogic coherence as a viable framework for the discussion of contemporary African American rhetorical and political thought and practice. Drawing on the insights of progressive Black thinkers such as Michael Eric Dyson, bell hooks, and Cornel West, the article illustrates how coherence theory reveals a theoretical trajectory of spiritually inspired militancy that enriches the emancipatory potential of contemporary Black thought and rhetorical inquiry.

The Rhetoric of Edification: African American Didactic Literature and the Ethical Function of Epideictic

African American didactic literature represents a richly diverse and immeasurably significant part of African American communication, culture, and history. However, this discourse has largely been neglected by both rhetorical and literary critics. The author's aim in this essay is to discover how rhetorical criticism can illuminate this significant part of African American communication and culture by reading it as epideictic rhetoric that serves an ethical purpose, specifically the edifying and shaping of character, both individually and communally. His argument is that looking at African American didactic literature as epideictic offers advantages to the critic by way of providing a generic foundation and frame of reference that help to understand the discourse both as literature and as rhetoric. A textual analysis of Claude McKay's (1953) antilynching poem If We Must Die will demonstrate how recognizing the ethical issues involved in African American didactic literature can promote critical understanding of some ways that such discourse contributes to the building and affirming of community values and identity.

The Psychoeducational Assessment of Ebonics Speakers: Issues and Challenges

Traditional standardized psychoeducational assessments do not adequately consider, nor do they fully account for or adapt to, the nonstandard dialects and cultural experiences that certain test takers bring to the evaluation experience. The assessment of African American Ebonics-- speaking students using such presents particular challenges. This article focuses on the specific limitations of these assessments for Ebonics- speakers, and describes alternative measures that yield more accurate results for these students. Further, the article highlights the implications of traditional and nontraditional assessment approaches for psychoeducational test developers, evaluators, educators, and students. INTRODUCTION Issues surrounding the psychoeducational assessment of bilingual/bidialectal children have drawn considerable attention from educators, psychologists, researchers, and politicans (Armour-Thomas & Gopaul-McNicol, 1997; Mercer, 1979; Oakland, 1977; Vasquez-Nuttall, Goldman, & Landurand, 1983; Williams, 1975). It has been widely asserted in recent decades that traditional assessments of cognitive ability and written, oral language, and reading skills do not yield accurate results for African American children who speak nonstandard dialects of English such as Ebonics-. Several scholars have claimed that the test-performance disparities noted between students who speak Standard English and those who speak Ebonics- can be attributed to dialectal as well as cultural differences (Allen & Boykin, 1992; Boykin, 1994; Gordon, 1991; Hilliard, 1983; Jones, 1988). Hilliard further concludes that Black children's performance on these assessments often results in their being labeled poor readers, low in intelligence, and speech impaired (p. 52). Moreover, errors wrought by the indiscriminate use of psychological tests, especally IQ tests have been found to contribute to the disproportionate number of Ebonics-- speaking African American children who are relegated to special education classes (Cummins, 1984, p. 1). Hilliard and others (Baugh, 1991; Haynes & Gebreyesus, 1992) have asserted that erroneous assumptions about the inferiority of the language systems and culture of African Americans vis-a-vis that of European Americans are at the core of the tests' inaccuracies. Chief among these misconceptions, according to Hilliard, are those which attest that Standard English is a pure and superior language, that English usage is fixed and permanent, and that American English is uninfluenced by African languages. Additionally, many educators and psychoeducational evaluators are unaware of certain basic facts about the distinctive African American language system called Ebonics- (see other articles in this issue: Harper, 1999; Taylor, 1999; Wright, 1999; see also Williams, 1975). As a result, they subsequently fail to understand Ebonics- in terms of its multiple linguistic origins, particularly those features resulting from the fusion of various African languages with English. They also fail to consider the enduring and far-reaching impact of Ebonics- on African American communication, comprehension, and interpretation generally or, more specifically, on the education of African Americans. How are evaluators, teachers, and test developers to contend with these issues? In seeking to answer this question, the present article examines the impact of dialectal differences on the performance of Ebonics--speaking and Standard English-speaking test takers on traditional standardized psychoeducational assessments. It also describes alternative assessments that have been shown to facilitate more accurate portraits of the psychoeducational functioning and potential of Ebonics- speakers. EBONICS AND TRADITIONAL ASSESSMENTS OF PSYCHOEDUCATIONAL FUNCTIONING Garner and Rubin (1986) and Roy (1987) emphasize that every language is shaped by the cultural experiences of the social group that uses it, and that no one language is better than any other insofar as its structure is concerned. …

African-American proverbs in context

From slave times to the present the proverb has been a mainstay in African-American communication. Such sayings as Hard times make a monkey eat red pepper when he don't care for black, blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice, and Nothing ruins a duck but its bill convey not only axiomatic impact but also profound contextual meanings.This study of African-American proverbs is the first to probe deeply into these meanings and contexts. Sw. Anand Prahlad's interest in proverbs dates back to his own childhood in rural Virginia when he listened to his great grandmother's stories. Very early he began collecting sayings, and, in researching this book, he spent five years listening to proverbs spoken in bars, clubs, churches, and retirement homes; on street corners, basketball courts, and public buses; at PTA meetings and bingo games.To discover the full context of a proverb, Prahlad considers four levels of meanings--grammatical, cultural, situational, and symbolic. The grammatical level refers to its literal meanings, the cultural level to its associations shared by most members of the cultural group, the situational level to the specific situation in which the proverb is spoken, and the symbolic to the speaker's own personal associations with the proverb.All these operate simultaneously when a proverb is spoken. Since the speaker may be fully aware of all levels, part of the artistry in using proverbs comes from the complex interplay of the dimensions of their meanings.African-American Proverbs in Context documents and analyzes both historic and contemporary proverbs. A survey of WPA interviews with former slaves and of the lyrics of blues songs and the contexts in which these were performed shows how proverbs have been used as a means of protest and cultural affirmation. Extensive field research conducted by the author with both master proverb users and young persons reveals the myriad functions proverbs perform in modern America. These range from direct communication of traditional knowledge to aggressive verbal competition among youths wishing to establish identity and status. This book has been chosen as a volume in the Publications of the American Folklore Society New Series.

Reflexive communication in the culturally diverse workplace

Introduction Demography: New Realities, New Imperatives Culture, Communication and Management Reflexive Communication Microskills for Reflexive Communication The White Male Communication Paradigm Women's Communication Paradigm The African American Communication Paradigm The Hispanic Communication Paradigm The Asian American Communication Paradigm The Communication Paradigm of the United States in the Twenty-first Century Index

BOSOM BISCUITS A Study of African American Intergenerational Communication

Grandma Mattie Flippin did domestic work for a White Virginia family. Her primary duties were cooking, cleaning, and whatever else she was told to do. Her husband died, leaving her alone to raise her extended family. Mattie Flippin spent more time at the White family's home than she spent at her own, but what time that she did spend at home was "quality time." Not having sufficient food for her family, Grandma Mattie Flippin used well the resources available to her. Before leaving the White family's home, she often stuffed her extraordinarily endowed bosom with fresh biscuits which she had made that morning. These biscuits remained body temperature warm, and, as reported to the authors by her grandchild, Ms. Martha Carter (May 14, 1991), the butter had melted and turned the biscuits' white insides a beautiful golden color. Sometimes, these warm, buttered, bosom biscuits were all the family had to eat.

IDENTITY AND COMMUNICATION

African American Communication: Ethnic Identity and Cultural Interpretation. Michael L. Hecht, Mary Jane Collier and Sidney A. Ribeau. Power in Language: Verbal Communication and Social Influence. Sik Hung Ng and James J. Bradac.