The recent work by sociolinguists is more accurate for consideration of urban dialects than is the analysis provided in the "Linguistic Atlas" materials. The sociolinguists' work shows that the use of nonstandard phonological and grammatical features varies according to one's socioeconomic status, ethnic background, speech context, age,…

A current vocabulary of argot terms and meanings was collected from a Black male control group in the South Central Los Angeles ghetto. This lexicon was used to elicit and compare responses from 5 male groups of youths between 15 and 20 years old. Two of the groups consisted of lower class blacks separated geographically. The other groups were…

THE DATA PRESENTED IN THIS BOOK WERE GATHERED AS PART OF A PROJECT TO ANALYZE THE NON-STANDARD DIALECT OF ENGLISH SPOKEN BY NEGRO CHILDREN IN WASHINGTON, D.C. THE ULTIMATE AIM OF THE PROJECT IS TO PRODUCE THE BASIC LINGUISTIC INFORMATION ESSENTIAL TO PROGRAMS FOR TEACHING STANDARD ENGLISH TO THESE CHILDREN. THE TAPE RECORDINGS USED IN THIS STUDY…

In recent years a considerable amount of interest has developed in language variability and in the educational problems connected with it. This volume is a report of linguistic research on the variable language behavior in a community of American English speakers, specifically on some aspects of tense marking in Black English. The following topics…