The present dissertation discusses the importance of rootedness, defined as orientation towards place, and how it factors into sociolinguistic studies. Although rootedness is not a new concept in sociolinguistics, it has been infrequently operationalized to understand its role in language change. Linguists have discussed concepts similar to…

The central role played by language in mediating school experience and the prestige accorded to standard language varieties within the field of education provide the broad rationale for this paper. This qualitative study, based on a friendship focus-group design, was conducted in two groups of 12-year-old children from contrasting "ideal…

This article wishes to initiate a sociolinguistic study of the linguistic behavior of migrant workers in France. The methodology proposed is to resemble that presently used by US sociolinguists in the study of American ethnic communities and include such basic concepts as "Linguistic Community" and "Language Loyalty." (Text is…

Presents research on the situational dimension of linguistic power in social context and the relevance of this research within culturally pluralistic educational contexts. Offers suggestions for class activities that can engage standard and nonstandard speakers of English as well as those who do not speak English. (SRT)

This is a study of linguistic variability among social levels in West Germany and of the problems associated with doing such an analysis. The data, ordered according to sex and social levels, were collected from young children retelling narratives heard on tapes. The report represents a comprehensive study of the children's syntactic performance…