Traces the history of the speech of New Yorkers, compares the speech of New Yorkers with the speech of those living elsewhere in America, and discusses the low prestige of New York City pronunciation. (DD)

A discussion and clarification of various forms and levels of Black English is provided together with a conjugation of the verb "to be" outlining the levels of meanings as used by most divergent black speakers. (EH)

A description and analysis of the various functions of black language as an integral part of the collective experience and identity of American blacks. (EH)

Paper read at the American Educational Research Association Convention in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1970. Research supported by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health. (DS)

This article examines the language needs of culturally different clients from a Black perspective, discusses the problems of languages-in-contact, and presents specific ways for teachers to improve the language competencies of Black students. (Author/HMV)

Argues that, considering the widespread pluralism in dialects in the Black community, the linguists' use of the term "Black English" to describe the language of only one group of blacks seems an example of poor communication between linguists and the general public; and that linguistists cannot afford to ignore the racial plays for power in the…

Black English-Negro Nonstandard English, or Negro dialect,"-although perhaps represented by less divergent varieties in the Northern cities of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, is here shown to have been there all along. (JM)

This book examines dialect variations in the United States. Chapter topics include an introduction to dialect study, colonial English, eastern settlement, eastern words, eastern pronunciation, eastern grammar, the westward movement, sectional atlas studies (the Great Lakes, the Upper Middle West, Texas, Colorado and other Rocky Mountain areas,…

This study describes the segmental phonemes of five 4-year-old speakers of Black English, and analyzes both their language development and ethnic characteristics. The study group of Negro children, born and living in Washington, D.C., came from homes that met two of three specified criteria based on the mother's education and family income. The…

Asserts that all Asian-American writers create out of, and despite their awareness of a double-terror, the knowledge (empirically derived from generations of betrayal) that language can be a trap and the equally bitter realization that the only alternative is ignominous silence; and notes that Asian American literature reaches some level of…

Analyzes fourteen conversations generated by five black children, ages six to eleven, from a lower socioeconomic group in Washington, D. C., which were recorded and transcribed in various settings involving adults of different races as interviewers. (JM)

This study explored whether statistically significant differences exist between the (1) grammatical structures produced by high, average, and low black, inner-city elementary readers as measured by a language competency task; and (2) whether statistically significant interactions occur between reading achievement levels and the age of the child,…

A communicativity index (Index I) is described that measures the potential communication function performed by a given language in a designated communication situation. Significant sociolinguistic contrasts between the language situations of West Malaysia and Singapore are revealed by applying this index. (PMJ)

During the past two decades the educational community has focused much attention on the language of urban minority children. Analytic positions set forth tend to assume varying degrees of either language deficit or language differences. The language deficit position is examined in this work from a sociolinguistic or psycholinguistic point of view.…