Code-switching pedagogies do not consider that some features of African American Verbal Tradition (AVT) are rhetorically effective mainstream communication structures in academic writing. My research asserts that when teaching language/ dialect difference in majority white school settings, contrastive analysis techniques such as these may have…

Focuses attention on the intent of this special issue to highlight a small number of key issues, directions, and questions on the changing contexts in which scholarship on Africanized English and school education is occurring, including reference to past Black English, dialect studies, the changing demographics of the students, and the complexity…

A corpus of Black English (BEV) data is re-examined with exclusive attention to the "is" form of the copula. This analysis differs from previous examinations in that more constraints have been introduced, and the Cedergren/Sankoff computer program for multivariant analysis has been employed. The analytic techniques that are used allow for a finer…

A wide-ranging discussion with William Labov, a sociolinguist interested in the study of nonstandard dialects, especially Black English dialect. (DD)

Generally, the article describes and discusses topics and positions found in the literature on Black English. Specifically, particular attention is paid to certain articles and positions that misrepresent opposing opinions and facts of the area. (Author/RM)

It seems highly likely that many of the features of Black American English can be traced back to the Afro-Portuguese Creole dialects that sprang up in the fifteenth century in Portuguese slave camps along the West African coast, particularly in the Gulf of Guinea area, the area of greatest concentration of activity during the slave trade. This…

A syntactic analysis of the language spoken by Black characters in three Black situation comedies on television; "Sanford and Son,""The Jeffersons," and "Good Times." (PD)

Assesses phonological continuity and change in the last stage of the moribund dialect called "Negerhollands" in the Danish West Indies (DWI). The article contrasts earlier and current views of this dialect, sketches language contact in the DWI, examines the last speaker's language history and vowel systems, and assesses variation in a…

This paper makes three arguments reaffirming the overwhelming complexities inherent in any real history of the language of blacks in North America. (1) Although the study of black English, however that term may be defined, is desirable in itself and was profitable for white linguists during the 1960s and early 1970s, it did not and never will do…

Reviews the rationale for and programmatic structure of two experimental language awareness programs and discusses some of the ethical issues requiring consideration in the implementation of such programs. These ethical considerations include the ethics of persuasion and need, the ethics of representation, the ethics of socio-educational change,…

The papers in this collection provide a brief state-of-the-art statement on the role of non-standard dialects of English in education and on some implications of the Ann Arbor decision. The following papers are included: (1) "Vernacular Black English: Setting the Issues in Time," by Roger W. Shuy; (2) "Beyond Black English:…

To be culturally valid, the characteristics identified by dialectologists as distinctive of black English must correspond to the terms members of the black community use to characterize their speech. Not all of the patterns that characterize black English within the dialectal framework are equal in their social or ethnic significance--the speech…

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,…

Black students that were grouped for English ability by their standardized test scores translated a standard English text into black dialect. Analytical data show group differences in dialect facility that correlate to standard English ability, suggesting that language development affects both dialect performance and standard English learning. (RL)

The occurrence of Black English Venacular (BEV) dialect features in the writing of 42 inner-city college students was studied using such sociolinguistic methods as variable rule analysis, computer programs, and implicational scales. A comparison of the patterns found in the subjects' writing with those found in spoken BEV revealed that sometimes,…