Explores the characteristics of a useful myth and identifies and describes several in the field of social dialectology: autonomous linguistics, standard/nonstandard polarity, bidialectalism, and community accountability. (KM)

Views from different disciplines and within different disciplines often come into sharp conflict with one another about the speech of lower socio-economic class Negroes. Furthermore, some current views of Black English have challenged basic linguistic and sociolinguistic premises about the nature of language. It is therefore the purpose of this…

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)

This paper begins with a discussion of the assumptions basic to the study of both language and social dialects: verbal systems are arbitrary, all languages or dialects are adequate as communicative systems, they are systematic and ordered and learned in the context of the community. A survey of current work and findings in dialect studies follows.…

The relativistic viewpoint of the sociolinguist emphasizes the fully systematic but different nature of nonstandard dialects. In this paper, the author takes issue with various views that currently enjoy popularity in a number of disciplines but which violate basic linguistic and sociolinguistic premises about the nature of language. These views…

RESEARCH ON ENGLISH PHONOLOGY IN NEW YORK CITY IS DESCRIBED. CURRENT LINGUISTIC THEORY IS CONSIDERED UNABLE TO ACCOUNT FOR MASSIVE "FREE VARIATION" IN THE PHONOLOGY OF THE SPEECH OF THAT AREA. ISOLATED WERE PHONOLOGICAL VARIABLES WHICH ARE ASSOCIATED WITH SOCIAL, STYLISTIC, ETHNIC, AND INDIVIDUAL FACTORS IN NEW YORK CITY. QUANTITATIVE…

Describes the processes by which distinctive varieties of English develop in areas where English functions as a second language. The distinctions between rhetorical and communicative norms for speech events in these varieties are discussed. (Author/AM)

The author takes up the problem of the origin of Negro dialects in the United States. On the basis of the very limited number of lexical items which can be traced directly to African languages, McDavid discounts the role of African influence on the patterns of current Negro English dialects. William Stewart suggests the possibility of extended…

This study examines the use of the auxiliaries "avoir" and "etre" and of the prefix "re-" in the speech of Franco-Ontarian students. It is found that the tendency to use non-standard constructions such as "j'ai arrive en retard" and "je vais remettre la roue 'back'" has its origins in historical…

In the past, social lectologists have not considered their work as contrastive linguistics. One reason is that sociolects of a language differ quantitatively; differences lie in the frequency patterns with which certain forms occur in each lect. Contrastive linguistics deals with standard or idealized languages, while sociolects are often…

The term "Regional Standard English" should refer to any kind of English spoken by educated individuals in a particular region. Vernacular is spoken by individuals with little education. Sociolinguistics as a field embraces ethnography of communication, social coding, societal analysis, social-psychological analysis and anthropoloty, all…

This bulletin reports on condensations of tape-recorded lectures and discussions from a workshop which trained a nucleus of Baltimore City Public School personnel in new approaches to the study of the English language. Designed to serve as an orientation, it is made up of six major sections: (1) Charlton Laird discusses the history, nature, and…

Societal differences among ethnic groups and other geographically remote bodies of peoples within a culture are often caused by dialectal variation. The social and educational implications of societal division by such linguistic differentiation are discussed in this article. The author touches on concepts relating to dialectology, paralanguage,…

This book contains essays which focus on the systems of communication that operate within and between various social segments of Afro-American communities in the United States. The essays are presented under the following headings: (1) "Getting Into It: Black Talk, Black Life and the Academic," (2) "'Talking My Talk': Black Talk Varieties and…

Many black students speak a nonprestige dialect called black English, which places them at a disadvantage academically and socially. This monograph describes the features of black English, defines its use, discusses several theories of its origin, and offers some methods for teaching black students standard spoken usage as another style of speech.…