Views from different disciplines and within different disciplines often come into sharp conflict with one another about the speech of lower socio-economic class Negroes. Furthermore, some current views of Black English have challenged basic linguistic and sociolinguistic premises about the nature of language. It is therefore the purpose of this…

The relativistic viewpoint of the sociolinguist emphasizes the fully systematic but different nature of nonstandard dialects. In this paper, the author takes issue with various views that currently enjoy popularity in a number of disciplines but which violate basic linguistic and sociolinguistic premises about the nature of language. These views…

Recent experimental work in teaching standard English to speakers of nonstandard dialects of English has shown that such speakers often have a good receptive command of the standard dialect, and readily re-encode stimuli presented in the standard dialect into their own nonstandard forms. This fact shows that some modification is needed in the…

Sociolinguists have proposed various beginning reading approaches to remedy the reading problems of disadvantaged black children. Their programs reflect their theoretical biases concerning the nature of Black English and the type and degree of interference that may exist between the language of the Standard English (SE) text and the child's…

The selections in this book reflect a concern for understanding urban ghetto vernicular and its implications for teachers. Chapter one provides preliminary information on Black English and an orientation to the linguistic viewpoint taken by the remaining articles. Chapter two discusses the social conditions under which Black English may be spoken;…

The first section of this report consists of papers given at the two-day conference on social dialects at the Center for Applied Linguistics, October 1969: (1) "Social Dialects and the Field of Speech" by F. Williams, with response by O. Taylor; (2) "Approaches to Social Dialects in Early Childhood Education" by C. B. Cazden, with response by R.…

The present paper reviews recent research in the area of nonstandard English: the major results to date, the significance of this research for education, and suggestions for further research. The notion of "standard" English resists precise definition; there is not a simple set of linguistic features which can be said to define it. The term…

This bibliography serves as an index to the 492 documents entered into the ERIC system during 1968 by the ERIC Clearinghouse for Linguistics. Fields covered are linguistics, uncommonly taught languages, Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, and Teaching English as a Native Language to Speakers of Nonstandard Dialects. In addition, it…

This report presents some of the findings of several years research on the relations between the non-standard English used by Negro speakers in various urban ghetto areas (NNE) and standard English (SE). The immediate subject is the status of the copula and auxiliary "be" in NNE. The approach to the problem combines the methods of…

The acquisition of Standard English by speakers of other languages and by speakers of non-standard dialects seems to differ (1) in motivation, (2) in the perception of Standard English, (3) in the social significance of Standard English, (4) in the cultural heritage and its influence on man's identity and self-respect, (5) in the source…