This paper first considers the inadequacy of definitions of dialect speech that are too rigid. Some of the ways in which dialect can influence the performance of children in school are discussed, and the notion that dialect is an indication of linguistic deficit is also considered. In the last part of the paper, the attitude of the Schools Council…

The Linguistic Atlas of the Gulf States (LAGS) Project is a survey of regional and social dialects in eight southern states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Texas. This manual has been prepared both for those who will conduct the research and for those who are interested in the aims and methods of the…

The syntactic and semantic constraints on the occurrence of HAVE-GOT and GOT, each with the meaning "possess," are analyzed with respect to differences among several ethnic dialects: American Anglo and Black English, British English, and Mexican-American and Puerto Rican English. Data from three sets of interviews which elicited these verbs are…

The three experiments reported in this document are all concerned with high school students' use of Black English. For the first experiment, the hypothesis was that lessons in grammar would aid speakers of Black English in developing competence in standard English. Results of this experiment were inconclusive. The second experiment showed that…

The introductory section of this study of Spanish dialects in the United States, commissioned by the ERIC Clearinghouse for Linguistics, presents the plan and the ethnic distribution of Spanish speakers in the U.S.. (The 1960 census shows the preponderance of population contribution to be from Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Spain.) A description…

The present paper reviews recent research in the area of nonstandard English: the major results to date, the significance of this research for education, and suggestions for further research. The notion of "standard" English resists precise definition; there is not a simple set of linguistic features which can be said to define it. The term…

The present study of Vaagri Boli is the first attempt to record this spoken language "systematically." The author defines Vaagri Boli, the language of the migratory Narikkorvas/Kuruvikkarans in Tamil Nadu, as a member of an inner subgroup of Indo Aryan languages. Following a brief description of the cultural characteristics of the…

The object of this study was to develop a model from which Appalachian students can learn to differentiate between their dialectal pronunciation of certain vowels and the pronunciation of those vowels in Standard American English. A secondary objective of the model is to enable students to imitate Standard American pronunciation. The first phase…

Anthropologist Melville Herskovits, in the section on language of his book "The Myth of the Negro Past" (1941), gives one of the first scientific orientations to the study of black speech in the United States. His basic contribution was to establish the following main points: (1) that the black people in the New World came from regions…

A child's language development during the elementary school years is described, with emphasis on acquisition and control of structural and lexical dimensions of the language of standard and nonstandard speakers and with special concern for the relationship between language production and the reading process. Numerous research studies are reviewed…

Bilingual education in the United States has been directed by various language education policies to which there are three dimensions: (1) the language or dialect the child speaks on entering school; (2) the type of language policy in the school, which may be monolingual or one of three types of bilingual policies; (3) the divisions of language…

The purpose of this study is to examine bidialectalism as an educational policy. The study is in two major sections: the first portion is concerned with the problems inherent in the policy process itself, with those aspects of educational decision-making which combine to make reasonable policy outcomes difficult to achieve; the second section…

This book deals with the isolation and alienation of native-language speaking minority groups resulting from the teaching strategies and procedures used in the public school system. Chapters include: "The Problem Defined," which states the problem of handicapped English and argues that it is a cultural rather than a psychological phenomenon; "The…

To determine the ability of both black and white children to repeat sentences which conform to the grammatical rules of standard versus nonstandard English, and to examine how attendance at racially and socioeconomically integrated versus segregated schools affected performance in standard and nonstandard English, third and fourth graders were…

Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages and Dialects is a complex task. However, there is a growing awareness of the similarities of the various types of English teaching, as well as a recognition of the need for communication among teachers. Well-designed TESL or TEFL curricula, regardless of the type of program, share certain objectives…