In recent years a considerable amount of interest has developed in language variability and in the educational problems connected with it. This volume is a report of linguistic research on the variable language behavior in a community of American English speakers, specifically on some aspects of tense marking in Black English. The following topics…

This is an annotated bibliography of basic tools of access for the study of the uncommonly taught languages of Eastern Asia. It is one of eight fascicles which constitute a revision of "A Provisional Survey of Materials for the Study of the Neglected Languages" (CAL 1969). The emphasis is on materials for the adult learner whose native…

The aims of this paper are to: (1) emphasize the need for language planning in efforts to solve the sociolinguistic problems of bidialectal and bilingual indegenous peoples in Australia, (2) demonstrate that these problems are not confined to Australia, and (3) show that methods of language planning and research in language attitudes developed in…

A comparison of the linguistic contexts of Scotland and Taiwan focuses on three aspects: (1) existence of two linguistic codes belonging to the same language family; (2) the status of one of those languages as the standard set by a larger, more powerful neighbor from whose perspective any other variety is likely to look like a dialect; and (3) the…

Puerto Ricans in the United States are often assumed to be bilingual, and most are to some degree. Among Puerto Ricans, frequent returns home are common, allowing for immersion in both cultures and communication in both Spanish and English. Despite availability of bilingual education, programs are too short for participants to attain even a…

The idea that vowel nuclei in many northern European languages can be divided into peripheral and non-peripheral categories is discussed. Peripheral vowels are those located at the edge of the vowel envelope, and non-peripheral nuclei are those located on the inside. This assertion has not received as much scrutiny as it should. There are at least…

This digest discusses the contextual factors that affect students' learning of a second language. These individual, social, and societal factors can be considered from the perspective of the language, the learner, and the learning process. These perspectives are discussed as they relate to learning any second language, with a particular focus on…

Examines the role of ethnicity, or the family and community, in determining linguistic variants (specifically, phonological variants) among Italians, Jews, and Irish in Boston. Implications for phonetic change and language acquisition are also discussed. (Author/AM)

Describes the dynamics of problem solving through spoken discourse in one-to-one tutoring of second-language writing in order to determine whether these processes vary with either instructional approach or language used. Tutors' and students' cooperative efforts to solve problems in the students' draft compositions focused primarily on local…

Suggests that the variety of English spoken in Brunei (BNE), sometimes called nonstandard, is still at an early stage of development and there is little awareness among its speakers of some differences from standard English (STE). Results of a grammaticality judgment test administered to 106 university students, designed to find nonstandard verb…

How can teachers make sound pedagogical decisions and advocate for educational policies that best serve the needs of students in today's diverse classrooms? What is the pedagogical value of providing culturally and linguistically diverse students greater access to their own language and cultural orientations? This landmark volume responds to the…

This collection of nine essays suggests that many academic problems attributed to children of color actually stem from a power structure in which the worldviews of those with privilege are taken as the only reality, while the worldviews and culture of those less powerful are dismissed as inconsequential or deficient. Part 1 discusses controversies…

A review of recent studies addressed the functional uses of code mixing across cultures. Expressions of code mixing (CM) are not random; in fact, a number of functions of code mixing can easily be delineated, for example, the concept of "modernization.""Modernization" is viewed with respect to how bilingual code mixers perceive…

A cross-cultural study of conversational politeness in Chinese and English as a foreign language is presented. The primary goals of the study were to make a systematic comparison of politeness rules and conversational strategies used in each language, to identify and analyze the actual communicative problems of cross-cultural communication…

The validity of the theory of crucial similarity in language interference is investigated. The theory proposes that when a first and a second language are structurally similar in some aspects, the second language learner will assume similarity in other aspects, causing interference. In this study, the German of first grade students whose teacher…