The use of English by foreign language teacher is a matter of much controversy. Whereas language switching by English-speaking foreign language teachers has been the focus of previous research, relatively little is known about the amount of teachers' language used in the classroom when comparing native speakers of the foreign language with…

In this article, the author examines the inquiry talk of a small group of bilingual children discussing the text "Oliver Button Is a Sissy". The children raised many questions about the story and about issues of gender. The major focus of this article is on the participants' inquiry talk and the context that mediated their talk. The author uses…

This introduction to sociolinguistics surveys the various ways that language can be studied as a social phenomenon, examining known relationships between language variation and large-scale social factors and showing how this variation runs along "fault lines in social structure," such as divisions between social classes, the sexes, and different…

Conducted by doctoral students, the study analyzed 3-minute tapes of conversation between 16 Title VII first grade Mexican American students and teacher aides in the Weslaco Independent School District, Texas, to determine the percentage of standard vs. non-standard language, measure the percentage of code switching by aide, show the percentage of…

A study of code-switching in a group of 35 Spanish-English bilingual third-graders is reported. The students' diary journal entries and writing assignments based on previous classwork are examined. Retelling of stories previously told by the teacher and the journal entries helped identify the kind of language used by students, the code-switching…

An ongoing research project into the dissolution or attrition of native language structure under the influence of bilingualism analyzed certain paradigmatic changes in the first language of a Hungarian-Hebrew bilingual speaker. Data were collected over a 2-year period from an Israeli woman who was born in Hungary and immigrated to Israel at 6…

Because an instructor's attitude toward students' language is a crucial factor in determining whether students will be active participants in the educational process, it is important for teachers to be aware of dialect differences. Labelled by many as "nonstandard," Black English is a dialect derived from Gullah, a creole based on…

This monograph presents language factors related to bilingualism, to assist educators to distinguish normal phenomena due to bilingualism from symptoms of a handicapping condition. The first section, called "The Nature of Bilingualism," discusses the diversity of bilingual students and their dynamic use of two languages, focusing on simultaneous…

A study investigated the relationship between gender, age, and length of residence in the United States and codeswitching behavior, by looking at the attitudes of 133 Hispanic college students who are first-generation immigrants from a variety of countries. The subjects completed questionnaires concerning their English and Spanish language…

The study described in this paper was designed to compare the composing processes of three black adolescent females--a low, a moderate, and a high user of nonstandard dialect. After explaining the procedures used in selecting the subjects on the basis of their degree of usage of nonstandard dialect features, the paper describes the research…

The nature and extent of code-mixing in the language acquisition process over a 12-month period was studied with a child growing up in a bilingual English-Chichewa (Bantu language) speaking home. Data are examined from age 18 1/2 months to 30 1/2 months. Definitions of code-switching are offered, and an analysis of code-mixing in the speech of the…

Sociolinguistic studies of spoken Arabic show at least three varieties at different levels of prestige: (1) Modern Standard Arabic (MSA); (2) regional standard with local prestige; and (3) vernacular varieties. The social function of the local prestigious nonstandard features can override the influence of the prestige of MSA. (Author/LMO)

This collection of papers presents research on language processing among second language learners and bilinguals. The nine papers include the following: (1) "The Bilingual's Language Modes" (Francois Grosjean); (2) "The Voicing Contrast in English and Spanish: The Relationship between Perception and Production" (Mary L. Zampini…

Language educators find two kinds of errors in the interlanguages of language learners: developmental and interference. While developmental errors reflect a normal pattern of development common among all language learners, interference errors are caused by the learners' native languages. This paper deals with a number of die-hard types of…

This collection of articles includes: "Introducing Applied Linguistics in Africa" (Sinfree Makoni and Ulrike H. Meinhof); "Language Ideology and Politics: A Critical Appraisal of French as Second Official Language in Nigeria" (Tope Omoniyi); "The Democratisation of Indigenous Languages: The Case of Malawi" (Themba…