English-as-second-language instructors should take into account the importance of context for the meaning of language and address the varieties of English that learners will encounter in their daily lives. The principal elements of language variation and their implications for learners are described for the benefit of second language teachers.…

This article discusses comprehension problems encountered by students of French as a second language as a result of the mismatch between the standard language they learn in classrooms and the language used by native speakers. (CLK)

This paper focuses on a language variation model that incorporates a number of concepts from linguistic and rhetorical studies. The model views language variation as a product of two correlating causes: one, the user and his or her personal, regional, and social dialect; and the other, the user's use of the language in terms of such discourse…

Presents research on the situational dimension of linguistic power in social context and the relevance of this research within culturally pluralistic educational contexts. Offers suggestions for class activities that can engage standard and nonstandard speakers of English as well as those who do not speak English. (SRT)

This paper reviews how various nonstandard dialects of English may influence written products and how writing may be taught to speakers of such dialects. Sections of the literature review focus on the speech patterns of black English, of other English dialects, and of other languages, and on how these patterns manifest themselves in written…

The linguistic theory of contrastive analysis, which provides pragmatic insights into the teaching of foreign languages, can be equally successful when applied to the teaching of one dialect of a language to speakers of its other dialects. This paper briefly illustrates how a theoretically constructed hierarchy of difficulty, originally designed…