Purpose: To evaluate the role of dialect on phonemic awareness and nonword spelling tasks. These tasks were selected for their reliance on phonological and orthographic processing, which may be influenced by dialect use. Method: Eighty typically developing African American children in Grades 1 and 3 were first screened for dialect use and then…

This study of certain phonological and morphological aspects of the Negro speech of Memphis, Tennessee, is a revision of the author's 1961 Ph.D. thesis submitted to the University of Michigan. Twenty-four informants, all but one of whom were native Memphians, were used for the study; they were classed according to education and age. The interview…

The regularity with which much variation between forms, formerly dismissed as "free variation," can be accounted for on the basis of extra-linguistic and independent linguistic factors has made the concept of the linguistic variable an invaluable construct in the description of patterned speech variation. The linguistic variable, itself…

THIS PAPER DISCUSSES THE INTERSECTION OF THE NONSTANDARD ENGLISH DIALECT OF THE URBAN GHETTOS AND STANDARD ENGLISH. THE AUTHORS DRAW ON SOME PRELIMINARY DATA GATHERED IN PERSONAL INTERVIEWS, INCLUDING A RANDOM SAMPLE OF 100 LOWER- AND MIDDLE-INCOME ADULTS IN THREE AREAS OF SOUTH CENTRAL HARLEM. ALTHOUGH NEGRO SPEECH PATTERNS HAVE BEEN EXPLAINED AS…

This book is the fifth in a series of publications concerning the position and role of language in a large metropolitan area. In this sociolinguistic description Detroit is chosen as a case study of a large Northern urban area which has shown a dramatic increase in its Negro population within the last half century. The primary goal of the study…

The 25 selected papers contained in this volume reflect the current diversity of interests and research methods within the field of sociolinguistics. Titles include: "What is a Language?"; "The Unreality of Quantitative Figures"; "Addressee-Oriented Features in Spoken Discourse"; "Women's Speech, Women's…