Paper based on PhD dissertation submitted to the University of Michigan. Research supported by OEC-3-6-061784-0508.

Focusing on the social variation of language, this paper provides an overview of basic sociolinguistic concepts deemed to be necessary information for teachers involved in the language and literacy development of children who speak nonstandard dialects. The first section of the paper discusses three things that teachers must understand about…

A functioning communication skills course for minority students has developed five pedagogical principles and appropriate techniques for teaching such students effectively: treat the minority student as an individual, not as a representative of some preconceived group; pay attention to the content, not the dialectal form, of a student's messages;…

The variation seen as deviation among the nonstandard styles of English does not represent a decay of the language, but rather, is necessary for simplification and other changes of English structure. The modern-day English pronominal system resulted from the incorporation of Scandinavian forms in the North and East Midland dialects of Middle…

THE RESEARCH DESCRIBED HERE IS BEING CARRIED OUT BY THE URBAN LANGUAGE STUDY OF THE CENTER FOR APPLIED LINGUISTICS. THE PRINCIPLE TASK OF THE PROJECT IS TO STUDY THE SPEECH OF NEGRO CHILDREN IN A LOW SOCIO-ECONOMIC AREA IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. SPECIAL MATERIALS FOR TEACHING STANDARD ENGLISH TO SPEAKERS OF NONSTANDARD NEGRO DIALECTS ARE BEING…

THE AUTHOR'S AIM IN THIS PAPER IS TO INTRODUCE THE CLASSROOM TEACHER TO THE TECHNIQUES OF PREPARING AND USING ORAL DRILLS TO TEACH STANDARD ENGLISH TO SPEAKERS OF NON-STANDARD ENGLISH. SUGGESTED LINGUISTIC READINGS AND A BRIEF OUTLINE OF THE WORK BEING DONE IN THE UNITED STATES IN THE FIELD OF REGIONAL AND SOCIAL DIALECTOLOGY PRECEDE EXPLANATION…

DESPITE EFFORTS TO SUBSTITUTE "DIALECT" FOR "USAGE" IN THE GRAMMARIAN'S VOCABULARY, THERE IS STILL A PLACE FOR THE LATTER TERM, FOR WITHIN ANY DIALECT THERE ARE MANY CHOICES OF FORM, WORD, AND CONSTRUCTION. THE TEACHING OF USAGE CAN BE FOUNDED ON TWO SIMPLE PRINCIPLES--(1) THE EXTENT OF SOCIAL PENALTY FOR USING THE ITEM AND (2) THE FREQUENCY OF…

Students who speak in a jargon related to, but different from, Standard American English and students who know a single or limited word meaning but are unable to translate that word into a new subject area content both need reading instruction as though Standard American English were their second language. All content area teachers must teach…

Jargon grows and communication is retarded when a learned vocabulary becomes more important for its social than its communicative functions. Teachers often severely correct the culturally deprived speaker of nonstandard English, whereas their first concern should be what is communicated, not how it is communicated. We are, after all, teaching…

The 15 articles in this issue of "Reading in Virginia" focus on various aspects of reading instruction. Topics of the articles are an analysis of American Indian dialect and its implications for the reading curriculum, community involvement, 13 basic words, kinesics and reading, a psycholinguistic perspective of reading problems, how…

A linear programed textbook, "Reading by Patterns: A Programmed Guide to Reading Sentences and Paragraphs," by Carl Lefevre, et al., is evaluated in three studies and found to be effective with remedial readers with nonstandard English dialects. The textbook is used in a tutorial program in which a tutor reads the directions and exercise…

Seventy-eight articles dealing with the teaching of reading to the culturally disadvantaged are surveyed in this selected annotated bibliography. The articles surveyed appeared in American periodicals and journals between 1966 and 1971. The bibliography is designed to serve as a quick and useful source of reference for teachers of the culturally…

This study investigates the extent to which nonstandard forms of written English create for readers stereotypes of the writer's personality. To determine the extent to which nonstandard writing is apparent to speakers of standard and nonstandard English, and to what extent such writing represents a socioeconomic liability for the writer, two…

Three studies of the relationship of Black English (BE) pronunciation to spelling performance are reported in this document. The first study explored a large number of BE pronunciation features. The second included control features that do not have differing pronunciations in BE and standard English (SE). The third examined final consonant…

The Dialect Differentiation Measure (DDM) provides an objective, quantifiable means of identifying speakers of Black English. Three production tasks, designed to constrain the range of linguistic constructions with which a child may respond, elicit seven phonological and syntactic features characteristic of Black English. The DDM was tried out in…