The purpose of this essay is to suggest one area of study, the functional nature of social dialects, and certain principles of anthropology as they are applied to social and cultural change, which may prove of some use to the teacher. There are essentially three pragmatic functions of language in communicative interaction: manipulative,…

Black English is adequate for speakers within the black community: adding a second dialect, standard English, opens new roles with the larger society. The teacher can encourage or discourage such change depending on his relations with students and the community. (JM)