Children come to school with the language of their families and communities. For many children, this means that they speak a nonstandard dialect, an English dialect not used as the primary means of instruction in schools. Examples of dialects include African American English (AAE; i.e., Ebonics), Hawaiian Creole, Hispanic English, and Southern…

Purpose: This study aimed to determine if the number and type of African American English (AAE) features that are spoken in sentences influence speech-language pathologists' (SLPs') judgments of (a) how noticeable the dialect is (dialect detectability) and (b) how understandable a speaker is to others (comprehensibility). Method: Certified SLPs…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between teacher attitude toward Black English and student achievement in reading. For this study, 61 teachers of reading or English/Language Arts in grades 3-6 were surveyed. These teachers, whose informed consent letters indicated a willingness to participate, were selected from 17…

This study investigates principals' individual and aggregate perceptions of and expectations for students who use African American Vernacular English. Using the African American English Teacher Attitude Scale (AAETAS), the study seeks to describe the relationship between principals' demographic characteristics and their perceptions of African…

Background/Context: Although progress has been made since members of the Conference on College Composition and Communication passed the Students' Right to Their Own Language resolution (1974), there still remains a demand to examine youth perceptions of language. Such examinations can help teachers and researchers improve curricular choices, honor…

This work addresses the politics of speech and language communication with respect to Africans in the Diaspora in Jamaica and in the United States of America. Language hegemony is an expression of the power and control sustained by means of institutions such as schools. Depending on their linguistic choices or situational language use, post…

Since the Oakland Unified School District passed its resolution on Ebonics in 1998, Ebonics has been a lightning rod for controversy of all sorts. The utilitarian intent of the original resolution was lost as the debate of Ebonics became intensely political and, to a great extent, marred by existing patterns of racial hierarchy and stigmatization.…

Analyzes outgroup linguistic racism in parodies of Ebonics that appeared on the Internet in the wake of the Oakland School Board resolution on improving the African-American students English skills. Shows that Mock Ebonics is a system of graphemic, phonetic, grammatical, semantic, and pragmatic strategies for representing an outgroup's belief in…

Many diversity courses that prepare pre-service teachers do not address the significance or the impact of language barriers on linguistically diverse learners. Often time, new and veteran teachers construct their bilingual and/or bidialectical students as others and are unaware of how to use their students' social, cultural, and political…

Examined nonlinguists' beliefs about language through dialogue in which African-American Vernacular English is the focus. Respondents are observed reasoning about language, and analyses reveal the structure of the conversation and the structure of participants' folk beliefs about language. (JP) (47 references)

Considers "Ebonics" the most encompassing of the different terms used to describe various English language patterns used by Blacks. Recommends measures to improve teacher attitudes and knowledge in dealing with students who use nonstandard language patterns. (Author/MJL)

This bibliography contains 103 references to scholarship on Africanized English and related educational scholarship published since 1985 and includes articles published in scholarly journals, books, and chapters from edited volumes. (MDM)

Investigates the perception and application of the norm in South African English with specific reference to Black South African English. Hypothesizes that South African English is in the hibernation and expansion phase. Three sets of data are presented and analyzed. (Author/VWL)

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to examine attitudes towards African-American vernacular English (AAVE) in a setting outside of the USA. Because foreign attitudes toward AAVE can serve as an indirect assessment of a society's racial prejudice, we decided to explore these attitudes in Japan: a country with an intriguing mix of…

The purpose of this study is: (1) to document the existence of a population speaking vernacular Black English (VBE) in Waterloo, Iowa, a middle-sized urban community in the Midwest; (2) to examine how Waterloo VBE contrasts with the surrounding majority language, Midland vernacular; (3) to investigate Iowans' language attitudes; and (4) to…