Until the 1880s, the language of instruction and that spoken by students was dictated by the culture of the community. Although public officials advised immigrants to use American English rather than their mother tongues, no legislation was enacted mandating English as the official language of education. However, with sizeable groups of immigrants…

This study investigated the effects of interference of a native dialect in the acquisition of a second dialect. Four groups of subjects were used: Five white preschool children from an intergrated nursery school, five Black preschool children from a Head Start program, five white, middle-class 16-, 17-, and 18-year-olds, and five Black 16-, 17-,…

This paper draws from a number of sources, from Muhammad Ali to TV commercials, to demonstrate the quite different conceptions that black and white Americans have of the meaning of boasting and bragging. For blacks, boasting and bragging are two distinct ways of speaking and communication. Boasting is a joking, playful verbal bahavior, not to be…

LANGUAGE SAMPLES OF 20 NEGRO HEAD START CHILDREN IN WASHINGTON, D.C., WERE ANALYZED USING LEE'S (1966) DEVELOPMENTAL SENTENCE TYPES MODEL. THE TRANSFORMATIONS AND RESTRICTED FORMS OF THESE CHILDREN WERE THEN COMPARED WITH THE RESULTS THAT MENYUK (1964) OBTAINED FOR MIDDLE CLASS PRESCHOOLERS. RESULTS INDICATE THAT THE ECONOMICALLY DEPRIVED CHILD IS…

This study in 1969-70 investigated morphological proficiency in relation to race, intelligence, and sex in a lower class rural kindergarten population in Florida. Subjects (145), Negro and white, male and female, were grouped in terms of high-, middle-, or low-intelligence using raw scores on a portion of the Kuhlmann-Anderson Intelligence Test.…

In this paper the author provides a brief overview of some of the ways in which recent sociolinguistic research is contributing to our knowledge of language teaching. The focus is on the American urban situation, especially as it relates to poor black children. One of the greatest deterrents to describing such situation has been our lack of tools…

The paper focuses on the linguistic behavior of Negro children concentrated in communities where a non-standard form of English is the accepted currency. Such children are verbal, possess a language fully developed to serve the needs of their "world," and think effectively enough to survive in a sometimes hostile environment. Certain basic…

The English spoken by second generation Puerto Ricans in Harlem is influenced by black English heard in the surrounding community, standard English used in the school, and the Spanish-influenced English used by the first generation Puerto Rican community. The study of these influences is conducted according to recently developed sociolinguistic…

There has been disagreement among linguists and psychologists concerning the age at which children develop social perceptions of others on the basis of difference in speech. The purpose of the present study was to determine in what ways eight- and nine-year-old children from different socioeconomic backgrounds might react to dialect differences.…

This volume contains the published version of selected papers from the 2000 Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics (GURT). Plenary speeches include the following: "The Talk of Learning Professional Work" (Shirley Brice Heath); "Linguistics, Education, and the Ebonics Firestorm" (John R. Rickford);…

RECENT RESEARCH ON THE NATURE OF NONSTANDARD ENGLISH DIALECTS HAS INDICATED THAT CERTAIN ARCHAIC SPEECH FORMS ASSOCIATED WITH CREOLE LANGUAGES ARE PRESERVED IN THE SPEECH OF URBAN NEGRO CHILDREN. THE AUTHOR OF THIS ARTICLE BELIEVES THAT LANGUAGE PROGRAMS FOR THESE CHILDREN SHOULD BE BASED ON A MORE COMPLETE LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF THEIR LANGUAGE…

PRESENTED IS AN INFORMAL REVIEW OF RESEARCH SPONSORED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA ON IMPROVING THE EDUCATION OF THE STATE'S DISADVANTAGED CHILDREN. VARIOUS PROJECTS ARE EXPLORING (1) ATTITUDES AND SELF-IMAGE AMONG NEGROES, (2) THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SOCIAL CLASS, ATTITUDE, AND ACHIEVEMENT, AND (3) THE SCHOOL EXPERIENCE OF MEXICAN-AMERICAN…

This paper focuses attention on the kinds of research assumptions that are present in the literature on language, and which can be found in the "myths" about family structure and motivation. Three major professions are concerned with describing the language and cognitive abilities of black children--(1) educators, who believe these…

The basic question underlying the research reported in this paper is: To what extent does a difference between a child's cultural background and that of his teacher and his scholastic milieu affect his classroom attitude and performance? Questions arising from this basic one are: (1) What features of a child's cultural background directly or…

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…