Purpose: The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association requires speech-language pathologists (SLPs) to be aware of language disorders versus language differences. SLPs are likely to provide clinical services to Navajo and other Native American children with communication disorders. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to educate SLPs who…

The goal of the paper is to demonstrate how sociolinguistic research can be applied to endangered language documentation field linguistics. It first provides an overview of the techniques and practices of sociolinguistic fieldwork and the ensuring corpus compilation methods. The discussion is framed with examples from research projects focused on…

This article provides a brief description of the linguistic features of African-American English (AAE) and reviews the positions that have been taken up about its role in American education, ranging from those in which AAE is seen as an obstacle to the education of black children to those in which it becomes a language that is different from…

Collins et al. 2008 offers a principles-and-parameters-based analysis of an AAVE construction first described in Spears 1998, in which nominal phrases such as "John's ass" appear to have exactly the same denotation, and behavior with respect to familiar conditions on anaphora, as the possessor ["John," and similarly for pronominal possessors.…

Discusses the Puerto Rican dialect and its peculiar placement of subject pronouns. Notes the linguistic variety in the dialect as well as its use of verbs connotating mental and communicative activity and constructions of relativity. These distinctions give rise to the functional hypothesis to account for the peculiarities of Spanish in the…

This book examines children's acquisition of a first language, the stages they go through, and how they use language as they learn. There are 16 chapters in 4 parts. After chapter 1, "Acquiring Languages: Issues and Questions," Part 1, "Getting Started," offers (2) "In Conversation with Children," (3) "Starting…

Describes the high Italian speech variety commonly used by Italian Americans, based on a study of 39 Italian Americans that included interviews and questionnaires. Dialectal characteristics, convergence with English, and language maintenance and language shift in the Italian-American community are discussed. (CB)

Considers the evolving pedagogical dilemma surrounding the teaching of "New French" and discusses the various options foreign-language teachers will eventually have to choose among when teaching French. (CB)

Essays on the history of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) include: an introduction to the evolution of AAVE within the African American diaspora (Shana Poplack); "Rephrasing the Copula: Contraction and Zero in Early African American English" (James A. Walker); "Reconstructing the Source of Early African American English…

Examines the nature of language diversity in the small, isolated community of Ocracoke Island, North Carolina, where a lone African American family has resided for over 130 years. (57 references) (Author/CK)

Language attrition research usually attempts to elicit all types of usage from speakers of all fluency levels in a dying language in order to abstract changing linguistic patterns from situational variation. Informants adept at hiding their vernacular and improvising in an obsolescing variety are reluctant to admit to such scrutiny. In a…

This paper discusses Aboriginal English speakers in Australia, noting the importance of recognizing prior learning and of recognizing Aboriginal English within the context of programs that understand the particular areas where Aboriginal English speakers need support to achieve outcomes in standard English. It defines recognition of prior learning…

Renewed interest in the connection between black English and reading difficulty warrants a summary of the groundwork laid in the 1960s and 1970s. Linguists have established the fact that black English is a legitimate language, that its speakers are not language deficient, and that the basic difference in black and standard English pertains to…