Explores the characteristics of a useful myth and identifies and describes several in the field of social dialectology: autonomous linguistics, standard/nonstandard polarity, bidialectalism, and community accountability. (KM)

Paper presented at 3rd Annual TESOL Convention, Chicago, Illinois, March 5-8, 1969.

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…

The assumptions of sociolinguistics are contrasted with those of its more static predecessors in light of their potential for bearing on educational problems. The focus on variability with regard to sex, age, style, socioeconomic status, race, education is more akin to the dynamics of the linguistic and educational setting in which a child finds…

Sociolinguistics is characterized by a concern for viewing language variation and for seeing language in real social contexts. It has a high potential for relationship and application to other fields such as education, sociology, and psychology. Sociolinguistics try to study the speech of a community, and instead of studying the presence or…

This paper outlines the development of an exciting set of changes going on in the field of linguistics at the present time. From studies of the ethnography of communication, generative semantics, variation theory, and pidgins and creoles has come a convergence of interests which highlights the concept of gradatum (rather than continuum) in…

Knowledge about how language works is often considered superfluous by the public. In general, the public image of language is that language is in a serious decline and that outside influences on language have led it astray, views that are supported by false assumptions about language on the part of writers. Writers in newspapers and magazines note…

This paper discusses the role of linguistics in educational planning and argues that, in order for sociolinguistic principles to be introduced and implemented, it will be necessary for sociolinguists to remember the failures of linguistics in the past, to rethink their attitudes concerning the relationship of their discipline to education, and to…

The study of language variation has brought linguists closer to some of the problems which concern our schools, namely, the teaching of reading, writing, and speaking. Through variability studies, answers can be found to questions about how to delimit styles, how to effect acceptability in school writing and talking, how to appreciate the dynamics…

The study of language is an interdisciplinary field, since language can be seen to embody characteristics of psychology, linguistics, literature, sociology, anthropology, education, and the sciences. Teachers of language can no longer afford to ignore useful information from any of the underlying disciplines. If language teaching is to be assisted…

The first section of this report consists of papers given at the two-day conference on social dialects at the Center for Applied Linguistics, October 1969: (1) "Social Dialects and the Field of Speech" by F. Williams, with response by O. Taylor; (2) "Approaches to Social Dialects in Early Childhood Education" by C. B. Cazden, with response by R.…

Paper read at the National Council of Teachers of English meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, on November 28, 1970. (DS)

Roger Shuy and Ralph Fasold's introduction describing sociolinguistics as (1) a desire to refine linguistic theory, (2) an attempt to describe the sociocultural matrices of language, and (3) an effort to apply sociolinguistic knowledge to this monograph. Walt Wolfram contributes substantially to the development of sociolinguistics theory in…