Two lower socioeconomic groups (one black and one white) from the inner city and a third group of white children from a middle socioeconomic suburban area of Chicago were studied to delineate and compare the usage of selected language structures among children of different social and ethnic backgrounds. Usage of each of the test structures was…

Using heuristic inquiry, this study investigates how dialect affects the ethnic identity development of the first author as well as fellow Lumbee students attending a predominantly white university. Heuristic inquiry is a process that begins with a question or problem that the researcher seeks to illuminate or answer. Findings from this study…

The influence of the socioeconomic background and sex of the child and the race of the clinician on the frequency of implementation of nonstandard phonological and grammatical structures was examined in 72 black 4-and 5-year-olds. In order to generalize findings to typical clinical settings, language samples were elicited by 3 black and 3 white…

The first of two experiments conducted in Detroit investigated the relationship between class and ethnic membership and identification of class and ethnicity; the role age and sex of respondent play in accuracy of speaker identification; and attitudes toward various socioethnic speech patterns. The second study was concerned with the attitudes of…

Comparative research indicates that almost without exception, late eighteenth century non-standard English pronunciation was very close to what is called Broad Australian. Present Australian English is closely akin to the blended, popular colloquial London English, spoken by the largest group of Australia's first settlers. This pronunciation…

Intended for use with students who have just become aware of dialect variations, this book addresses dialects of American English. Chapters include an introduction to dialect study, discussions of colonial English, Eastern sttlement, Eastern words, Eastern pronunciation, Eastern grammar, the Westward movement, an analysis of sectional atlas…

The purposes of this paper are: (1) to illustrate the nature of the difficulty when disadvantaged black children are taught reading by conventional methods; (2) to show that the conflict points, specifically, the phonological conflict points, need not be a problem if they are simply disregarded; and (3) to argue that disadvantaged black children…

Argues that the mechanism of rule ordering, although sufficient to account for certain facts about linguistic change and variation, is not necessary. Different sequences of identical rules needed to account for dialectal facts in Catalan can be predicted by two independently motivated universal principles. (CHK)

Part of Lexicography and Dialect Geography, Festgabe for Hans Kurath''. (DD)

Author explains the significance of a survey of student language, and gives a sample Checklist of School Language". (SP)

The applicability of the notion of "speech community" in urban centers where considerable dialect mixing takes place is discussed. Labov's model is examined and four speech community criteria are emphasized: nativeness of speech community members, uniform patterns of linguistic variation, shared evaluation of features, and close…

This document shares Dr. Walt Wolfram's views on African-American Dialect. He states that the most elementary principle is that all language is patterned and rule-governed, and one can apply that principle to African-American English, Appalachian English, and to every other dialect that is examined.

Spanish American plural formation is discussed in relation to attempts that have been made to write a set of phonological rules that would correctly predict the Spanish plural using a combination of phonological rules and word structure constraints. A brief synopsis is resented of why previous attempts to predict the plural are in error.…

This study examined whether children's use of subject relative clauses differs as a function of their English dialect (African American English, AAE vs. Southern White English, SWE vs. Mainstream American English, MAE) and clinical diagnosis (specific language impairment, SLI vs. typically developing, TD). The data were spontaneous language…

For the beginning or general student, dialectology and the history of the English language can both be taught with a common frame of reference provided by certain principles of linguistic change. Related in obvious ways with the history of language but often overlooked in dialectology, these principles are (1) that any living language is certain…