Based on findings from a variety of research, Shin and Miller (2022) propose a 4-step process that children go through as they learn sociolinguistic variation. Their proposal raises many interesting questions that should inspire future research. Here, I discuss their Step 1 -- the stage in which, according to their proposal, children produce only…

This dissertation draws on both qualitative and quantitative approaches to investigate the linguistic practices of teachers and children who are learning Mandarin Chinese as a Heritage Language (CHL) in two dual immersion preschools in California. CHL children have been interpreted as novice members in local speech communities who actively explore…

An area in need of study in child language acquisition is that of complex multilingual contexts in which there is little language separation by interlocutor or domain. Little is known about how multilingual children use language to construct their identities in each language or in both languages. Identity construction in monolingual contexts has…

The speech of 11-year-old children in different socioeconomic groups, was analyzed across a range of communicative tasks. On most "traditional" measures, consistent group differences did not appear. Significant differences were found on measures directly derived from the "planning principles" said by Bernstein to underlie restricted and elaborated…

The frequencies and co-occurrence distributions of some of the prosodic features in the speech of children are discussed. The emphasis is on the determination of systems and structure of non-segmental lectal variability in the children's speech without primary reference to function. The primary data consisted of selected episodes of connected…

A study of the acquisition of interrogative forms in children of high socioeconomic status reveals that utterances belong more to the colloquial than to the standard range. It is concluded that disadvantaged children would show similar usage, leading to the suggestion that teachers teach language as they use it. (Text is in French.) (CDSH/CLK)

Selected phonological, morphological, and syntactic evidence from two hours of tape recordings of conversations of a four-year-old Native American New Mexican was examined to determine its value in assessing the child's bidialectalism. (Author/SW)

Examines the conversational behavior of eight-year-old Hawaiian boys and girls of either Caucasian or Japanese descent in same ethnic and same-gender pairs or in mixed-ethnic and/or mixed-gender pairs. Results suggest that temporal speech patterns are stable characteristics of children's vocal behavior, and that these conversational rhythms vary…

This paper examines the formal and functional properties of code-switching among Mexican-American children. Two formal types of code-switching, code-mixing and code-changing, are identified, and developmental patterns in their use are discussed. Two major functional types of code-switching are also differentiated. The first, situational…

This paper is primarily concerned with Basil Bernstein's sociolinguistic account of school failure. The first section describes some earlier work relevant to his theories. In the second section, Bernstein's sociolinguistic codes thesis is described, and an attempt is made to show that it suffers from the merging of two logically distinct strands…

A description of a study whose object was to analyze the oral language used in class by nine-year-olds from varied socioeconomic backgrounds. The procedure, results and the linguistic characteristics according to situation are described. Several statistical tables are provided. (Text is in French.) (AMH)

This article discusses how and when children acquire and master various speech styles, and specifically deals with the development of sex-specific speech as influenced by role expectations. (CLK)

This article reviews the situation of the instruction of French in Quebec, in terms of the role of French and attitudes toward standard and non-standard varieties of French, the acquisition of French by native French speakers. Bidialectal instruction is suggested as one way of dealing with non-standard varieties. (Text is in French.) (CLK)

This study continues a series of reports on the work of the team which has carried out a sociolinguistic survey of multilingual communities. This study deals with an early sample of the results of the St. Lucian survey, and in particular with the extent to which they provide support for the theoretical model of linguistic choice and change, and…

Presents a series of 10 true-false statements pertaining to dialect, then discusses the correct answers. (FL)