Two of the most stigmatized languages in the United States today are African American dialect and Appalachian English dialect. The attitudes many hold about Appalachia have come from the literature written about the place, the people, the cultural life of the mountain region, in general, and the spoken dialect. Arnow's "The Dollmaker,"…

An allegorical argument favoring the use of both standard dialect and nonstandard dialects in English speech. (RB)

Discusses bilingual education from both sociocultural and sociolinguistic perspectives. Stresses the need for bilingual programs to accept and adapt to the dialects of Spanish, French and English spoken by Caribbean immigrants to the United States. (Author/GC)

In this article, the author shares his experience growing up speaking African American Vernacular English in school and his observations about nonstandard American plantation English. The author's amateur linguistic observations about nonstandard American plantation English gave rise to immediate dialect comparisons between African American…

A review of the NCTE publication "Students' Right to Their Own Language." (RM)

Examins historical and current views of pidgins and creoles. (KM)

This annotated bibliography of Virgin Islands literature includes the author's name, birthplace, and birthdate; the title of the work; the publication date (if published); the publisher's name and address; a brief comment on the work; and the libraries where the work is available. An addendum contains a list of additional authors and works. (NKA)

Two facts need to be recognized before the problem of Aboriginal Nonstandard English can be resolved: Aboriginal Nonstandard English has failed to respond to conventional remedial techniques and some incentive must be relevant to Aboriginal Nonstandard English speakers before their learning the standard dialect is relieved of being a pointless…

Describes available ERIC resource materials favoring and opposing the use of nonstandard speech. (MH)

To focus on the problem of what an English teacher can do about nonstandard dialects, one must ask what English teachers hope to accomplish in the classroom. The concept used in this paper is that a dialect is a part of a whole language. Some dialects are accepted as standard; others are considered nonstandard. Many teachers, however, will object…

The auditory discrimination ability of pupils who are generally classified as "socioeconomically" or "culturally" disadvantaged is the subject of recent research. The concept of the disadvantaged child that has auditory discrimination difficulties--and associated with them problems in reading and perhaps even speaking--was quickly and widely…

Because the spoken rhythm of Black English differs from that of standard varieties of American English, speakers of Black English are more likely to write sentence fragments. (DD)

As custodians of the past, teachers have an obligation to teach edited American English. (DD)