This paper attempts to dispel a number of misconceptions about the nature of meaning, namely that: (1) synonyms are words that have the same meanings, (2) antonyms are words that have opposite meanings, (3) homonyms are words that sound the same but have different spellings and meanings, (4) converses are antonyms rather than synonyms, (5)…

Bidialectal approaches to American public school teaching presume a relativistic view of language on the part of teachers, a requirement which has received little scrutiny since bidialectalism has become a predominant approach to divergent language in school settings. Evidence drawn from documents of the American teaching profession over the past…

An effort to lay the foundation for the preparation of reading programs which will match the social and linguistic background of lower-class children, in particular children of the nation's black ghettos, is made in this paper. The paper consists of five sections. The first section discusses the interconnection of social, geographic, and stylistic…

Efforts to change traditional methods of language teaching have brought refinements in pedagogical thinking, one recent change being that concerning teaching standard English as a second dialect. We must, the author urges, internalize the fact that a divergent dialect represents a system of its own and is not simply an accumulation of mistakes. We…

The beginning reading problems of the child who speaks nonstandard English are analyzed from the standpoint of the linguistic theory of interference, the name given to the condition in which the person imposes the sound and grammatical system of his own language on the language to be learned. Applications of the Skinnerian theory of stimulus…

There are three areas of interest in the topic of sociolinguistics in the classroom. First, the study of sociolinguistics is the interest of the professional linguist; second, the application of sociolinguistic principles is or should be the concern of all professional people who care about what goes on in the classroom, especially the teacher;…

The purposes of this study were to determine the frequency of nonstandard linguistic patterns of black and white college freshmen in remedial writing classes in the Pittsburgh area and to correlate these features at a statistically significant level to the following linguistic variables: ethnic and language-history background, racial background,…

Recently much linguistic research has been amassed on black language. With rare exceptions, this linguistic research has been directed to the lower working-class members of the black community. The language of blacks who are not lower class, on the other hand, has been summarily ignored, resulting in the middle-class black protest against the…

Because of the tendency to reject Black English speakers, perhaps as an excuse for maintaining social and racial prejudices, teachers should understand that nonstandard dialects result from geographical and/or cultural isolation and conflict (as in Applachian English), and from linguistic conflict (as in Chicano English). The language of many…

Intonation patterns of Black English were studied and compared with those occurring in White English and formal Black English. It was found that: (1) the Black English corpus was characterized by a wider pitch range, extending into higher pitch levels than either the White vernacular or the formal Black English of the adult information; (2) a…

The material in this 125-item annotated bibliography is limited primarily to articles and reports published during 1971. The resources used were those available in the greater Rochester, N.Y., area. The Rochester Regional Library Council's "Union List of Serials" was the authority used for serial holdings of area libraries. ERIC document numbers,…

This text seeks to sensitize teachers and administrators to the language problems faced by culturally different children, to sharpen and broaden their perspectives regarding the relationship between language and culture, and to help them devise effective strategies for teaching language skills. The text is divided into three major sections. Part…

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…

Subjective reactions to language (language attitudes, beliefs, values, etc.) are the focus of this monograph. Chapters include: (1) "Sociolinguistic Correlates of Speech Style in Quebec" by Alison d'Anglejan and G. Richard Tucker; (2) "Some 'Unexpected' Reactions to Various American-English Dialects" by Bruce Fraser; (3) "Attitudes and Learning a…

In this second of two studies conducted with portions of the National Speech and Hearing Survey data, the investigators analyzed the phonetic variants from standard American English in the speech of two groups of nonstandard English speaking children. The study used samples of free speech and performance on the Gold-Fristoe Test of Articulation…