This study investigated how much of the Language Instruction Register (variation in language in different social situations) black-vernacular speaking children had acquired by grades one, three, and five. A sentence repetition task was devised which contained selected Language Instruction Register forms having black ghetto vernacular semantic…

Two curriculum strategies were implemented and assessed in an effort to increase the bidialectal proficiency of fifth grade speakers of nonstandard Negro dialect. It was hypothesized that (1) children exposed to the curriculum strategies will show increased proficiency in their use of standard English; (2) children thus exposed will maintain…

Recent studies suggest that the language deficiency often attributed to disadvantaged children, especially disadvantaged black children, is not a language deficit so much as a difficulty in dialect switching. The disadvantaged child's language patterns are different from the language patterns of the child from the mainstream of American society. A…

This study examines the usage of the auxiliaries "avoir" and "etre" in the passe compose and pluperfect. The study is primarily based on a sample of French written by agroup of grade 9 Franco-Ontarian pupils from the Sudbury region. The students' written French is shown to include a high proportion of cases where intransitive…

This 3-year research project sought to determine whether language differences between Gullah-influenced and English speaking students in Charleston County (South Carolina) influenced test performance and subsequent interpretation of test results. A sample population of 503 educable mentally handicapped, learning disabled, and regular students…

This study examines the usage of preposition "pour" in the written and spoken French of two groups of Grade 9 and 12 Franco-Ontarian bilingual students from Welland and from the Sudbury area. Both the students' written and spoken French are shown to include a substantial proportion of constructions with "pour" which deviate…