Sociolinguists have been fighting dialect prejudice since the 1960s, but deficit views of non-standard English are regaining currency in educational discourse. In this paper I argue that the traditional sociolinguistic response--stressing dialect systematicity and tolerance of "difference"--may no longer be effective by questioning a key…

In order for schools to develop systematic and realistic strategies for extending children's linguistic repertoires, it is imperative that teachers and allied professionals have access to scientifically informed accounts of the variable but structured nature of the everyday speech used by children. Because there is insufficient information…

This paper reports a study of the use of non-standard English in the formal speech of 15-year-olds of both genders and of varying attainment levels. The pupils were drawn from two schools on Tyneside which take pupils from catchment areas of markedly different socioeconomic status. Differences were found in the incidence of non-standard lexis and…

Contemporary views of literacy as a wide range of sociocultural practices acknowledge a comprehensive account of adolescents' literate lives, which includes previously unrecognised vernacular literacies. Contrasting descriptors such as official/unofficial and sanctioned/unsanctioned have been used to describe adolescent writing from different…