Over 50 years ago, the Norwegian-American linguist Einar Haugen published a seminal paper entitled 'Dialect, language and nation' (Am Anthropol 68:922-935, 1966b), in which he expounds his four-step model of standardization, explaining the development from dialect to standard following a process of norm selection, codification, acceptance and…

This study aimed to study the association between diglossic reading skills and reading comprehension in first grade students with and without learning disabilities. In this study population, students presented diglossia in literary and colloquial Arabic: 30 first grade students with learning disabilities and 30 first grade students without…

This study explored the development of L2 learners' interactional competence in Arabic when making requests. Combining a longitudinal and cross-sectional design, it closely examined how learners' language proficiency affected their use of multiple requests in daily-life interactions. Participants included L2 learners (n = 40) and Saudi Arabic…

Native Arabic speakers read in a language variety that is different from the one they use for everyday speech. The aim of the present study was: (1) to examine Spoken Arabic (SpA) and Standard Arabic (StA) voweled and unvoweled word reading among native-speaking sixth graders with developmental dyslexia; and (2) to determine whether SpA reading…

This study examines heritage speakers' knowledge of Standard Arabic (SA) and compares their patterns of SA acquisition to those of learners of SA as second/foreign language (L2). In addition, the study examines the influence of previously acquired language varieties, including Colloquial Arabic (QA), on SA acquisition. To this end, the study…

The present study examines whether bilectal Greek Cypriot educators are able to identify dialectal (Cypriot Greek) elements superimposed on the standard language (Standard Modern Greek) in a written variety-judgment task. By doing so, (meta)linguistic skills of bilectal teachers from Cyprus were put to the test and later compared to the results of…

Purpose: In perception studies, it is common to use vowel stimuli from standardized recordings or synthetic stimuli created using values from well-known published research. Although the use of standardized stimuli is convenient, unconsidered dialect and regional accent differences may introduce confounding effects. The goal of this study was to…

Linguists have long accepted the inevitability of linguistic variation as scientific fact. However, the general public continues to associate regional variation with low intelligence and to promote a non-regional, "accentless" English as the ideal. The result of this ideology, which ignores the natural diversity of all languages, is that…

This study compares teachers' language use and covert language attitudes in primary and secondary state education in Cyprus. The Ministry of Education and Culture encourages the systematic use of Standard Modern Greek in the formal learning environment of the classroom. Yet, our class observations and teacher interviews demonstrate that the Greek…

Discusses the borrowing of French words in German. (Text is in French.) (AM)

To provide an authority on usage, this book presents an analysis of the treatment of American English as it appears in a number of dictionaries and usage guides. The first chapter presents brief sketches of the usage guides and studies that provided the basis for this compilation and discusses the organization of the book. After a resume of the…

The basic scope of this document is a study of the emergence of a linguistic standard for England. It is stated that this was essentially an unconscious process, a recognition of an existing social situation, which took place during the 15th century. A differentiation is made between speech characterized as standard and that characterized as…

Detailed analysis of frequencies of the primary auxiliary verb "be" in Scots dramatic texts leads to consideration of the typological relationship said to exist between different varieties of Scots and between them and standard English. (Author/CB)

A discussion of bidialectalism looks at whether it is analogous to bilingualism, particularly in the case of young speakers of Black English, and how this and related considerations may inform reading instruction. Theory and research concerning dialects and bidialectalism, bilingualism and its various types, and linguistic competence and…