The great majority of poor readers in urban schools are members of an ethnic minority, a low social class, and a poor family. The simple recognition of these factors, however, is of no help in characterizing the specific sources of language norms among urban minority students or in determining the ways these distinctive norms interfere with…

Language development and dialect are measures of influences upon a student's ability to learn to read. It has been observed that students whose language differs from that used in schools and in the materials of instruction are often found in remedial reading classes. Their difficulty lies in attempting to learn to read a language which is…

The express focus of this book is primarily on black American language. However, it is asserted, a comprehensive interpretation of this language requires an understanding of its social and cultural context. This book reviews the various ways in which the black experience in the United States has been treated in social science. It points out a…

In devising an inventional scheme for considering black communication behavior with possible implications for a more general theory, four constituents must be considered: frame of mind, scope of context, structure of code, and delivery of message. The concepts of rhythm and styling seem indicative of the black frame of mind, while the contextual…

This study investigated the relationship between the syntactical language development of first grade children and their socio-ethnic status. From a random selection of 160 first grade children, 19 Caucasians with highly developed language abilities were selected from a high socioeconomic stratum to be compared with 19 Negroes with low language…

As part of the development of a battery of tests to determine proficiency in black standard and nonstandard speech, the authors developed a two-part test consisting of 20 items designed to evoke a response by means of verbal and pictorial cues. Each cue was supposed to elicit a specific grammatical construction characteristic of either black…

Becoming bilingual as defined in this book is a process by which an adult acquires an additional language in the environment in which it is spoken, surrounded by the culture in which it is used. The book seeks to present the learner with an integrated and systematic treatment of his task--linguistic, cultural, and practical--in learning a new…

Going beyond mere grammaticality, this book examines the basic writing skills of a group of community college students in Hawaii for errors in idiomaticity, or native-like appropriateness of expression. The book suggests criteria for the classification of "phrasematic" expressions, and a convenient terminology comprising idioms,…

Describes why the Oakland School Board proposed to apply African Language Systems principles to move students closer to English proficiencies. The board's objective--to raise the language skills of African-American students--was interpreted as a proposal to teach substandard English and was used to validate racist dialog. The public furor ignored…

The four 1996 issues of this journal contain the following articles: "Sketch of Autosegmental Tonology" (H. Andrew Black); "System Relationships in Assessing Dialect Intelligibility" (Margaret Milliken, Stuart Milliken); "A Step-by-Step Introduction to Government and Binding Theory of Syntax" (Cheryl A. Black);…

The collection of 21 narratives of the Tatl'ahwt'aenn (Upper Ahtna, or Headwaters People) of Alaska focuses on stories about historical events and traditional territory. The stories are told by six elders in Upper Ahtna, one of four dialects of Ahtna, an Athabaskan language. An introductory section offers background information on the population,…

A study of the process of bilingualization of second-generation immigrants to Catalonia, a region of Spain, is described and summarized. The study looks at the interrelationships between (1) linguistic context, all sources of messages in natural speech; (2) linguistic behavior, the real communicative use the individual makes of his expressive…

A SEPARATE LANGUAGE MANUAL FOR THE NEBRASKA ELEMENTARY ENGLISH CURRICULUM SUPPLEMENTS THE LANGUAGE-EXPLORATION SECTIONS OF THE UNITS IN GRADES ONE THROUGH SIX. THIS RESOURCE MANUAL PROVIDES AN INTRODUCTION TO MODERN LANGUAGE STUDY AND DESCRIBES ITS APPLICATION TO THE LANGUAGE LEARNING LEVELS OF CHILDREN. BY THE TIME CHILDREN ENTER JUNIOR HIGH…

Black Arts Literature--of which the New Black Poetry is the most important manifestation--emerged during the past decade as the appropriate artistic counterthrust to Black Power. Rhetoric and shouting aside, this new thrust was, on a very basic level, simply a call to black folks to redefine Blackness and re-evaluate the Black Experience. For the…

This paper explores the presence of African American Vernacular English patterns in the reading of one child over a 20-week period. In this paper, I present insights from linguists about African American Vernacular English, list linguistic patterns characteristic of African American Vernacular English speakers, examine the relationship between the…