Purpose: Research has established that African American (AA) children are lagging behind other children in their reading skills. A number of factors have been proposed to account for the literacy gap; however no single factor has entirely explained this disparity. This investigation examined the appropriateness of the Gray Oral Reading Test-Fourth…

Research in multilingual classrooms demonstrates education as a key site within which social and linguistic values are shaped. This study extends such research by investigating language use in a Scottish primary classroom. Scots is widely spoken throughout Scotland, figuring in a 2003 Scottish Parliament report as one of two indigenous heritage…

This study used data from questionnaires completed by teachers employed in North Carolina schools (N = 370) to determine if teachers felt that non-school-related or school-related factors served as barriers that limited the number of African American male children from participating in gifted programs. The majority of the teachers taught 3rd- to…

Two experiments investigated the mechanism by which listeners adjust their interpretation of accented speech that is similar to a regional dialect of American English. Only a subset of the vowels of English (the front vowels) were shifted during adaptation, which consisted of listening to a 20-min segment of the "Wizard of Oz." Compared…

Studies of Mexican and Puerto Rican communities living in the same United States cities suggest that a combination of historical factors and local conditions strongly influence to what extent these two groups interact and form a shared sense of pan-ethnic Latino unity. However, few studies have examined "MexiRican" individuals, those who…

Using heuristic inquiry, this study investigates how dialect affects the ethnic identity development of the first author as well as fellow Lumbee students attending a predominantly white university. Heuristic inquiry is a process that begins with a question or problem that the researcher seeks to illuminate or answer. Findings from this study…

It is probable that the majority of the 455 000 strong Aboriginal population of Australia speak some form of Australian Aboriginal English (AAE) at least some of the time and that it is the first (and only) language of many Aboriginal children. This means their language is somewhere on a continuum ranging from something very close to Standard…

The Maori language is the language of the indigenous people of New Zealand. Today, not all Maori speak the Maori language, and many Maori as well as non-Maori speak Maori English, the fastest growing of the main varieties of New Zealand English. This paper provides a background to the linguistic situation of the Maori populace in New Zealand,…

This paper organizes and evaluates 18 studies dealing with attitudes based on language differences which people possess toward others. Special consideration is given to the area of teacher-student relationships. The authors present a synopsis of each of the 18 studies, considering such details as purpose, speakers, judges, stimulus materials,…

Developing language habits in students leads to discussion of their self esteem as well as to the values of the dominant society. (JH)

Over a 10-year period, the oral language development of 338 pupils was studied from kindergarten through grade 9 to establish the most crucial and frequent oral language difficulties. Recorded samples of oral English from each subject were segmented by oral intonation patterns and syntactic units, and were analyzed yearly in terms of 21 oral…

In this study, two hypotheses are examined: (1) There is a positive correlation between the incidence of dialect speech of black second graders and their perception that dialect speech is "bad." (2) Use of dialect speech does not interfere with the speaker's ability to identify words in traditional orthography. The study established language…

The measurement of sociolinguistic behavior requires the formulation of a unit which can take into account continuous, ordered variation within and across discrete linguistic types--the linguistic variable. The linguistic variable, itself an abstraction, is realized in actual speech behavior by variants. The formulation of the linguistic variable…

The seventh in a series of inservice teacher education units is devoted to improving the language skills of disadvantaged students. Part I discusses standard and nonstandard English, and the structural and functional interferences posed by the language systems used by disadvantaged pupils. Part II is devoted to the dialects used by Negro and…

The first of two experiments conducted in Detroit investigated the relationship between class and ethnic membership and identification of class and ethnicity; the role age and sex of respondent play in accuracy of speaker identification; and attitudes toward various socioethnic speech patterns. The second study was concerned with the attitudes of…