By extending the notion of metroethnicity, this paper proposes the notion of metrolingualism, creative linguistic practices across borders of culture, history and politics. Metrolingualism gives us a way to move beyond current terms such as "multilingualism" and "multiculturalism". It is a product of modern and often urban interaction, describing…

This paper explores how one facet of the process by which ideology about linguistic variation originates and circulates. It analyzes an archive consisting of newspaper articles from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, about Pittsburgh speech, the earliest of which is from 1910. The articles began appearing regularly during the 1950s-60s. First, the paper…

This article focuses on the particular challenges, choices, and celebrations relevant to teaching in an urban setting. The speech of African American students is described as rich and reflective of the African American oral tradition. The article also discusses the meaning, rules and the evolution of African American English.

This paper offers a brief but comprehensive overview of various issues pertaining to the use and origins of Black English. The purpose of the paper is to help educators understand Black English and celebrate this dialect in class while facilitating the acquisition of Standard English. It holds that Ebonics is a dialect of English with its own set…

The City University of New York is an ideal home for the doctoral training center in urban and applied linguistics since it is located in an area with a large number of non-English speakers demonstrating varied dialect forms, immigrant groups from many countries, and individuals representing all economic and social levels. In addition, there are…