Dis, Dat, and Dem: Addressing linguistic awareness for counselors of African American English speakers

Abstract

Upward of 80% of Black people speak some variant of African American English (AAE). The counseling profession is a language-oriented form of help seeking, yet the relevance of linguistic diversity in a counseling context is largely absent from scholarly literature. Using Critical Race Theory as a theoretical framework, the authors provide a definition of AAE, as well as historical and sociopolitical contextual information about AAE. Important clinical implications for working effectively with AAE speakers are identified.