Examines viewers' perceptions of characters and their speech to see if: (1) the language of the characters corresponds to the language of Black speech communities as described by sociolinguists; (2) White viewers perceive language as important in their perceptions of the characters; and (3) White viewers are more likely to identify with speakers…

Examines the literature on the language of working-class Black children, and emphasizes the need for a new framework for research. Describes research being conducted within such a revised framework (by the Center for Applied Linguistics), which focuses on analysis of stages in acquiring the total Black English system instead of focusing only on…

This critical analysis of the usage of Black English in the classroom suggests that a change in teacher attitudes toward Black English will increase student ability and desire to learn standard English. (DA)

Three linguistic theories (the creolist, the transformationalist, and the ethnolinguistic) of the origin and historical development of Ebonics in America are examined. (Author/MC)

Discusses various quantitative and qualitative techniques used to examine nonlinguists' beliefs about language, focusing on content-orientated approaches to conversations with African Americans about African American Vernacular English. Approaches to discoursal meaning based on vantage theory and argument analysis are also considered. (MDM)

The integration of 66 African-American Detroit inner-city residents into their neighborhood is measured quantitatively by a Vernacular Culture Index construction from the respondents' responses to 10 statements. Results show that older respondents are more likely to choose African-American English variants than younger ones. (33 references)…

Code-switching is examined in oral narratives of 30 African-American women as they switched from Standard English to Black English Vernacular. A little over half of the speakers assign positive values to their code switches. Examples are given from interviews with two subjects. (SLD)

Reports results of a study in which 72 African-American college students listened to and evaluated a tape-recorded excerpt of a speech in two versions, one in Ebonics and one in Standard English. Finds students rated the speaker who used Standard English as more credible (i.e. , more competent and having a strong character) and more sociable than…

For the past 25 years, controversy has developed over the value and use of African-American (AA) English. This study examined the opinions of AAs from a variety of backgrounds and communities in California and Georgia to obtain their views on AA English; its place in the school, in the community, and in AA heritage; and its role in the futures of…

Two studies compared the impact of black and white audiences on black students' writing style. In the first study, eight students in an all-black intermediate composition class completed one argumentative draft addressed to black opponents and one addressed to white opponents on two different topics. The essays were examined for stylistic features…

A study of spontaneous language use by elementary school children and teachers in a wide range of classroom activities used a combination of observation, audiotaping, videotaping, and interviews to examine more closely the role of dialect diversity in elementary education. The study provides a more accurate and complete record of classroom life…

In a case study investigation of six black college freshmen from low socio-economic and black nonstandard English-speaking backgrounds, it was found that, as hypothesized, the students reflected in their writing a performance capability in standard English sufficient to render them functionally bidialectal. For these students, certain hypothesized…

This paper deals with the claims concerning the presumed language deprivation of lower-class blacks, and the findings of sociolinguists that refute these claims. The author asserts that the perceived deficiencies of non-Standard English were largely the product of middle-class intuitive assumptions concerning lower-class speech, and that recent…

Three studies, involving 140 black third grade students reading below grade level, sought to determine whether dialect interference negatively affected reading comprehension. The first investigation found that a story could be repatterned to significantly reduce the number of miscues and minimize dialect interference between the student's oral…

A study investigated the relationship between phonological features in the oral reading of black West Indians and their reading comprehension. Subjects were 54 college students at the College of the Virgin Islands, St. Thomas. Each subject was recorded reading two passages and completed two cloze tests. The tapes then were analyzed for nine…