[1] Lanehart was the Brackenridge Endowed Chair in Literature and Humanities at the University of Texas at San Antonio from 2006 to 2019, and was selected by the Linguistic Society of America as a 2021 Fellow.
Lanehart was born on November 4, 1966, in the town of Picard in the Southern United States, where she lived until leaving to attend graduate school in Michigan.
Their struggles with literacy, due to a lack of education and opportunity, motivated her to create an outlet in which their stories could be told, and so she prioritizes supporting those closest to her through her work.
[7] She also posed a set of questions to the panelists regarding the relationship of African American English to other languages and its role in education, family, and community.
The editor asked these not with the expectation that they be answered, but to lay a foundation for future conferences on African American English as a guide to measure progress in the field.
[8] Lanehart's text prioritizes the language as a sociocultural and historical phenomenon, stating that the two "are fundamental aspects of the nature and continued existence of African American English as well as, for example, identity, self-efficacy, resilience, motivation, goals, and possible selves.
Further, Lanehart expresses her belief that research on African American English must be more accessible to the public so that those outside of the academic sphere can utilize it in responding to educational and social concerns.
[10] In her book Sista, Speak!, Lanehart tells the narratives of five African American women in her family across three generations: Maya, her grandmother; Grace, her mother; Reia, her aunt; Deidra, her sister; and Sonja, herself.
Part Two provides a scholarly analysis of each of these elements (background, education, language, literacy, and individual goals), updates the reader on the women's lives five years after the data was collected, and explains the consequences of the research.
By using self-narratives as her form of data, Lanehart exemplifies the interconnectedness of language, identity, and culture, further solidifying the book's sociolinguistic orientation.
In order to overcome these inequalities, Lanehart states that society must purge the idea of a "proper" language, and instead, recognize a non-hierarchical range of linguistic diversity.
The introduction discusses how the study of African American English has developed since the 1990s to encompass a broader range of topics, both within linguistics as well as in other fields.
Lanehart and Malik also state the goal of the book, that being to collectively display contemporary and traditional research on African American language from a range of scholarly perspectives with a broad readership in mind.
They believe collaboration and dialogue to be important in furthering the inquiry into and knowledge of African American English, and so OHAAL serves as a tool for future academic work to be more effectively executed.
Lanehart states that her goal for the chapter is to "define and discuss difficult terms related to language and identity in African American communities" through examination of linguistic attitudes and beliefs.
She discusses her own experiences with prejudice against her use of African American English and how the stigma has resulted in shame and denial among many members of this language community.
They instead take pride in how African American English (and other non-standard varieties for similarly derided linguistic groups) overtly demonstrates their black community, history, and identification.
Lanehart explains how African American English derives from the unique experiences of its speakers, and that the way it manifests depends on the individual's perception of how they fit into the world around them.
Jessica Grieser, an assistant professor in rhetoric, Writing, and Linguistics at the University of Tennessee, praised the book for its comprehensiveness in the academic journal Language in Society (45:5, 2016).
She highlighted its effectiveness in including both long-standing issues in the field as well as contemporary research to push the boundaries of African American linguistic study.
Grieser commented that some of the authors did not demonstrate a full understanding of every detail in their subfield, but that this was remedied by the breadth of topics discussed and by the book's appeal to many different audiences.
"[22] Anne H. Charity Hudley, Professor of Linguistics at the University of California Santa Barbara, offered her review of the OHAAL in the Journal of Sociolinguistics (21:2, 2017).
Charity Hudley stated one of the biggest shortcomings of the OHAAL to be "the lack of big picture perspectives in the individual chapters," along with it leaving unanswered questions relating to the implications for African American culture as a whole.
[23] The documentary "Talking Black in America," created by Walt Wolfram, examines African American English by focusing on the experiences of everyday people.
With insight from educators, linguists, and historians, the film intends to demonstrate the significance of African American English in the United States.
In 2006, the University of Texas at San Antonio's College of Liberal and Fine Arts named Lanehart as the Brackenridge Endowed Chair in Literature and Humanities, a title she held until 2019.
[29] With the finances from this grant, Lanehart distributed funds to her students, attended linguistic conventions, and organized academic conferences (such as the one that led to the publication of African American Women's Language (2009)).
The Nexus of Race and Place in Investigating Black Student Achievement" in SAGE Journals (38:1, 2009)[36] uses material from Sociocultural and Historical Contexts of African American Language (2001).
In 2003, West Virginia University linguistics professor Kirk Hazen published a review in the academic journal American Speech (78:1, 2003) summarizing, commenting on, and critiquing each chapter.
The specialties of the involved scholars vary: Hazen has focused his work on variation in Appalachian English, Spears has concentrated largely on pidgins and creoles, and Smitherman pursued African American education and literacy before retiring.