In order to determine the attitudes of sixth-grade children toward literary characters who are represented as speaking regional dialects of American English, 96 students (all Caucasian) were randomly placed into one of eight groups, each of which either heard or read two literary excerpts--one in nonstandard English and one as rewritten in…

Constraining linguistic metatheory by demanding that it allow the construction of grammars for all the frequently occurring idiolects of standard American English is shown to narrow the choices among competing theoretical positions. In this way data from a nonhomogeneous speech community are used to illuminate rather than cloud a theoretical…

This dissertation abstract summarizes a research study which investigated the hypothesis that bilingualism in children would result in: (1) increased ability to analyze syntax; (2) acceleration in the time of arrival of the stage of concrete operational thinking; and (3) an increase in cognitive flexibility or ability to mentally shuffle material.…

The purpose of this project was to develop new materials for non-English speaking secondary school students of English as a second language that were meaningful and applicable to their immediate needs. The material was developed from audio and video tape recordings made of survival situations encountered by ESL students in an American high school.…