This article describes the use of African American English (AAE) in the written and oral language of African American adolescents who struggle with writing. Written and oral language samples of 22 African American 10th-grade students were transcribed, analyzed, and coded for AAE, grammatical errors, spelling errors, and punctuation errors. Four…

The characteristics of several nonstandard dialects of American English are presented in this paper in the form of an inventory of features. It has been compiled with the recognition that nonstandard dialects are governed by pronunciation and grammatical rules and that within the broad category of nonstandard dialects, regional and ethnic…

This paper, which deals chiefly with Black English (BE), is an attempt "to exemplify some general principles concerning the nature of nonstandard dialects" with the chief goal of demonstrating the legitimacy of such dialects and fostering an attitude of respect towards them. The following points are stressed: (1) BE shares many features with other…

Designed as a 13-week self-help course to meet the speech and language needs of college students in the areas of articulation, voice control, standard American usage, and fluency, this combination syllabus and workbook offers a rationale for the course, describes course objectives and content, and provides worksheets and evaluation forms for the…

The recent work by sociolinguists is more accurate for consideration of urban dialects than is the analysis provided in the "Linguistic Atlas" materials. The sociolinguists' work shows that the use of nonstandard phonological and grammatical features varies according to one's socioeconomic status, ethnic background, speech context, age,…

The teacher working with second-dialect students requires knowledge of the phonology used by his students to deal, not primarily with their pronunciation problems, but, with their reading and writing problems. In language classrooms, priority should be given to the aspects of language used by children that identify them as nonstandard speakers.…

An attempt is made in this book to state some of the features of and dispel some of the myths about nonstandard English, particularly the dialects of English spoken by many black Americans, and to consider alternative policies that might be adopted regarding varied forms of English. The chapters of the book include "What Is the Problem?""Is…

This paper points out some linguistic and stylistic features of Black English as spoken by children and discusses the occurrence of particular language patterns. Examples of distinct intonation patterns, paralinguistic effects, language rhythm, and other phonological features are all considered. A statistical survey of particular age-group usage…

Strategies are suggested that can be used by teachers who are trying to get Black Dialect speaking students to speak and write the General Dialect. The approach takes into account the fact that all speakers are not on the same level. The need for careful pre-testing and determination of class rank is suggested, as are various ways of evaluating…

In recent years a considerable amount of interest has developed in language variability and in the educational problems connected with it. This volume is a report of linguistic research on the variable language behavior in a community of American English speakers, specifically on some aspects of tense marking in Black English. The following topics…

This issue includes the following articles: "Towards a Sociolinguistics of Style" (Alan Bell, Gary Johnson); "Engendering Identities: Pronoun Selection as an Indicator of Salient Intergroup Identities" (Miriam Meyerhoff); "A Majority Sound Change in a Minority Community" (Carmen Fought); "Addressing the Actuation…

This document attempts to make necessary information on linguistics available to teachers of disadvantaged children. Its first section discusses the three dimensions of language differences--historical, regional, and social--that account for usages frequently condemned without being understood. The second aims at providing a deeper understanding…

These 14 articles on aspects of linguistics include the following: "Economy and Optionality: Interpretations of Subjects in Italian" (David Adger); "Collaborative Repair in EFL Classroom Talk" (Zara Iles); "A Timing Model for Fast French" (Eric Keller, Brigitte Zellner); "Another Travesty of Representation:…