The formal study of social dialects has received increasing attention since about the middle of the sixties. In linguistics, the study of social dialectology has resulted in the clear demonstration of the importance of sociolinguistic variation in linguistic theory in contrast to the former preoccupation with linguistic universals. In education,…

As the field of sociolinguistics has emerged, its terminology, which like many other emerging disciplines contains many neologisms and new usages, has sometimes been called insensitive. This reaction may interfere with serious examination of the field's content. Areas of disagreement or dispute include terms used for the speech of black…

This paper focusses on sex contrasts in language as revealed in recent sociolinguistic research. While there are relatively few differences in subjective language identifications and judgments, there are several clear differences in objective language data. In the Detroit Language Study, women show a greater "sensitivity" to multiple…

There are problems in the field of English teaching on at least three levels: research, teacher training, and the students. Research in the teaching of English must be preceded by research in English, language variation, and native language acquisition and by further work in descriptive linguistics. A significant problem in current language…

Subjective judgments are useful in linguistic studies to supplement information from objective language data, enlarge our knowledge of public conceptions of social speech communities (such as Negro speech), provide techniques for discussion of social markedness of standard and nonstandard varieties of English, and provide techniques for…

The author describes three current approaches to the problems of nonstandard English and examines the motivations behind their recommendations. The traditional negative correction to standard he calls "eradication," based on ethnocentric prescription. "Biloquialism" offers the student the option of adjusting phonology, grammar,…