Describes dialect differences, how to distinguish them, how to assess them and how to use them in teaching standard English. (Author)

Special issue on Black Dialect: Historical and Descriptive Issues'' edited by William A. Stewart. (RS)

This study compared the ability of Southern urban higher status white and lower status white and black four-year-olds to imitate, comprehend, and produce selected standard English grammatical structures. The higher status white group performed better than either of the lower ones. Possible effects of dialect differences on the results is…

In dealing with the differences between the school and non-school language of Black children, the author uses a contingency grammar," which considers all speakers of a language to have the identical linguistics competence but includes a level of systematic performance" to account for dialectal and other systematic differences. (FB)

Paper presented at 3rd Annual TESOL Convention, Chicago, Illinois, March 5-8, 1969.

Three groups of first grade children were identified with a screening modification of the Carrow Elicited Language Inventory: children who spoke standard English, children who spoke Black English vernacular, and children with true language pathology. Discussion of the results describes the identification of Black children with true pathological…

An overview of Black dialects, with suggestions for teaching students who speak in Black dialects. (RL)

Argues that books written in Black English should be used as supplementary materials in a classroom reading program; lists 22 such books and provides a plot synopsis for each book, information about estimated readability and interest levels, and language samples. (ET)

Activities for teaching Ebonics-speaking children to differentiate between problematic standard English and Ebonic forms are presented. (Author/MC)

The ways in which Black consciousness and experience emerge in the works of three Black poets are explored in this article. Historical, cultural, psychological, and linguistic influences are considered. (GC)

A study of syntactic variables now undergoing change in a predominantly black community in coastal South Carolina. (DD)

Describes the use of black communication style by African Americans in an organized environment. Uses a research method involving a multimethod approach of field data collection using direct observation and semi-structured interviews. Shows that, although the black employees felt they were changing their communication style to fit organizational…

Suggests that the United States may well want to entertain a National Language Policy, a supplement to the National Education Goals and the national standards that have appeared in recent years. Notes that a position paper developed in 1988 by the Conference on College Composition and Communication, entitled "National Language Policy," might serve…

Compares linguistic and non-linguistic components of ways of speaking, being, performing, and reasoning within an urban African American secondary classroom and a midwestern African American hair salon, identifying culturally shared interactional norms that inform knowledge building across sites and analyzing how the discourse norms and structures…