Argues that linguists have ignored diversity within the northern Khoesan (NK) group of languages of Southern Africa and this has had serious repercussions both for speakers of these languages and for linguistic theory. The variation that appears within NK has been ignored in part because a single variety has been misunderstood as being the !Kung…

The objective of this response article is to think through some of what I see as the far-reaching implications of a recent paper by Eric Hauser (2005) entitled "Coding 'corrective recasts': the maintenance of meaning and more fundamental problems". Hauser makes a compelling, empirically-backed case for his contention that, contrary to widespread…

The ability to deal effectively with student differences is crucial to teaching reading. Teachers must address the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse students in the regular classroom. The ability of teachers to handle differences effectively translates into instructional practices that provide for each student's self-respect and that…

Some syntactic patterns of the variety of English used by students in the final year of formal learning of English are analyzed. In addition, the nature of the lectal continuum of South Asian English (SAE) is discussed, including alternative conceptions of Standard SAE and evaluation of other lects. The discussion is based on an analysis of…

Language variation, be it foreign or dialect, receives little tolerance and understanding by the general public. Thus, there are two major challenges for the decade of the 1980s in language arts instruction. The first is for teachers to become thoroughly informed about the nature of language and its role in our society. A knowledge of language…

A variable rule of /s/ deletion that operates in many varieties of Spanish is examined. A descriptive apparatus is posited that may be helpful in systematizing quantitative data from studies of phonological variability. Empirical data from the speech of informants show that ordering relationships among constraints on variable phonological rules…

Discusses similarities and differences between structured program design and instructional design, suggests that use of structured programing by instructional designers would help them communicate with programers, describes structured program design techniques, and presents a sample application of structured programing to design an educational…

Posits two hypotheses arising from the great immigration to Sweden and the immigrants' use and learning of Swedish: (1) Swedish as used by immigrant children may show certain features, related to a creolization process; and (2) the Swedish language may in future show signs of influence from the varieties used by persons with immigrant background.…

Examines the nonstandard constructions in Caipira Portuguese, a dialect spoken in southeastern Brazil, which illustrate a tendency to reduce morphological redundancy at the noun phrase level. This is accomplished by restricting plural markers to only one of the elements of the noun phrase--not the noun, as might be expected, but, rather, one its…

The status of French in Morocco is ambiguous: it is neither an official language nor a foreign language, and it would benefit greatly from an official definition that would allow a variety of language conflicts to be resolved. (MSE)

This article suggests that linguistic prescriptivism be used in the classroom as a means of eliminating discrimination. Since American society is predominantly monolingual, students must learn to use standard American English to gain access to social, political, and economic life in society. (DF)

Differences of language often mirror differences in values and worldviews. An examination of the languages of business and education shows that if people really want to run an educational institution "like a business," there is a serious semantic problem. This book illustrates the problems that arise when familiar words have different connotations…

Summarizes historical developments in the sociology of language and education. Urges teachers to create alternative patterns of interaction in their classrooms so that they might better promote learning, language development, and social relations among teachers and students. (RL)

Argues that the articulation of school language policies deserves careful attention as they implicitly formulate a hidden curriculum with reference to the relation between education and society. Discusses issues in context of policy developed in an urban high school in Ontario. Considers cultural values, social convention, and social control.…

Notes that the general public has developed an awareness of sexist language usage and has begun to make changes in its use of the word "man," and traces parallel changes that are gradually being made in the English pronoun system. (GT)