The Language Strand of the Australian Curriculum: English (Australian Curriculum, Assessment & Reporting Authority (ACARA), 2016b) includes the sub-strand of "Language Variation and Change". This sub-strand is a marked space for discovery and discussion of the history and politics of language use. As such, this sub-strand points to…

Examines several areas where traditional work in dialectology has proven inadequate. Outlines specific areas where sociolinguistics can make a substantial contribution. Discusses (1) the bias in dialectology toward the historical; (2) the relative lack of attention paid to the heterogeneity of the speech community and the variability of speech;…

Illustrates substrate reinforcement in the development of three current dialects of Melanesian Pidgin. Evidence of earlier variability is presented and the sociolinguistic conditions that later led to greater stability are described. Grammatical features that differentiate the dialects are examined. For each feature, it is shown that at least two…

Presents personal opinions of high school teachers that reflect the linguistic diversity, literary treasures, and regional uniqueness of North America. (NH)

A syntactic analysis of the language spoken by Black characters in three Black situation comedies on television; "Sanford and Son,""The Jeffersons," and "Good Times." (PD)

Discusses some of the theoretical issues underlying the study of Chinese dialects, reviews the historical background within which the dialects were formed, and reviews some ongoing studies that appear promising for increasing understanding of how dialects are structured and how they are changing. (CB)

Considers the historical background and the demographical characteristics of those residents of St. Augustine, Florida, who are descended from the city's original Spanish and Minorcan population. Included are a list and analysis of words found in the English dialect which represent the lexical vestiges of colonial Florida Spanish. (SED)

Shows that the English names of meals are variously applied, according to geographical area and social class, as well as working hours and personal habits. (IFS/WGA)

Describes the attitudes of Black and White, male and female, middle- and lower-class adolescents and preadolescents in response to tape-recorded samples of standard English and Black English. (HOD)

Describes the processes by which distinctive varieties of English develop in areas where English functions as a second language. The distinctions between rhetorical and communicative norms for speech events in these varieties are discussed. (Author/AM)

The prepositional phrases used in free play discourse by 45 African American preschoolers from low-income homes were analyzed. A statistically significant positive relationship was found between amounts of African American English (AAE) form use and relational semantic complexity. No significant relationships were found between simpler…

The linguistic embedding, transition, and actuation of the obliteration of the gerund ending "-e" in the West Flemish dialect of Bruges is examined. The study shows that deflection (loss of inflections) started in the fourteenth century and is almost complete today. (33 references) (Author/LB)

An excerpt from the resolution of the executive committee of the Conference on College Composition and Communication, which espouses the view that no variety or dialect of a language is intrinsically superior to any other, is presented. Implications for teaching standard and nonstandard dialects are discussed. (KC)

Social implications of phonological and morphological variation in Classical Latin is examined. Arguments for the social factor are instances of hypercorrection, private and domestic instances of certain datives and Augustus' use of rural "domos" for "domus." It is understood in terms of the model of urbanization. (35…

Supports a greater use of repeated recordings and elicited intuitions by sociolinguists in assessing the linguistic competence of individuals or groups. A replication of an earlier implicational analysis of pronominal variation in the Guyanese creole continuum shows that, with repeated sampling and the inclusion of elicited intuitions, the…