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…

The language or dialect used in a conversation will vary according to the social situation, the identity of the participants, and the conversational topic. Bilinguals will often switch languages to suit the topic or the listener; persons who speak both standard and dialect forms of a language will use the standard in formal conversation and the…

Describes recent efforts that have been made to overcome barriers to the successful implementation of sociolinguistics in early education, barriers involving acceptance of research by the schools, attitude and teaching method changes by teachers, and the needs of the children themselves. (DS)

Presents the advantages of an analytic, constructivist, holistic view of language learning and training, whether native or foreign, written or oral, productive or receptive. Argues that context (setting the linguistic forms in a communicative competence framework) is the critical issue. (HOD)

The first of two experiments conducted in Detroit investigated the relationship between class and ethnic membership and identification of class and ethnicity; the role age and sex of respondent play in accuracy of speaker identification; and attitudes toward various socioethnic speech patterns. The second study was concerned with the attitudes of…

This volume is a report of the methodology employed by the Detroit Dialect Study staff in their survey of Detroit speech, 1966-67. As a study of one approach to sociolinguistic fieldwork, this report is descriptive rather than theoretical "in order to provide a practical basis for large-scale urban language study." The authors discuss…

The relationship between sociolinguistics and educational concerns is examined, the focus of the paper being to discover how current developments in sociolinguistics are contributing to the field of bilingual education. Following a brief discussion of related legislation, basic questions concerning bilingual program implementation are raised,…

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…

Persons from minority groups often are at a linguistic disadvantage in (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Nov. 22, 1975) the language and culture of the physician or psychoanalyst, who may be unaware of problems of understanding. Patients have certain language rights in medical care. (1) The right to human dignity in the medical relationship is…

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…

This paper contends that children's failure to demonstrate predictable gains in reading ability may be attributable to the failure of the teaching program to focus on strategies involving larger and larger chunking of the language accesses. Teaching programs in reading should be constructed to develop middle-level reading skills. Such programs…

A recent study of 30 urban teachers showed that they were not only unable to give a precise description of their students' speech, but had no idea of how to go about making a description. Their ideas on vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation were formed by popular folk-lore rather than linguistic knowledge. Current teacher training programs are…

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,…

In this paper the author provides a brief overview of some of the ways in which recent sociolinguistic research is contributing to our knowledge of language teaching. The focus is on the American urban situation, especially as it relates to poor black children. One of the greatest deterrents to describing such situation has been our lack of tools…

This document comprises the final report of the Detroit Dialect Study (see also AL 001 422 and AL 001 419). In order to contrast the speech patterns of various socio-economic groups, the research design included--(1) randomly selecting approximately 700 Detroit residents of four major age groups from an enumerated population providing as few…