A story is told of how inner-city youth organizations use dramas that young people write, cast, and direct to enable them to retain their first language or dialect while gaining standard English and preparing for job entry. The story ends with implications for the language classroom. (seven references) (Author/LB)

Argues that in Europe over several centuries, the relationship between democracy and language policy in multilingual countries has been complex, noting that Catalan has thrived in democratic periods where devolution has advanced, and the causes of most problems facing Catalan are nonlinguistic. The paper examines language and democracy, language…

Describes a morphosyntactic feature of the Xining dialect that is unique among all Chinese dialects: that is, the use of a preposition to express ablative nominal relationships. (Author/VWL)

Outlines four ways the basic writing enterprise has failed: by giving insufficient attention to public relations; by allowing itself to be co-opted by traditional academic politics; by not unraveling the confusion of legitimate differences of dialect with "bad grammar"; and by not taking a more critical and enterprising approach to research. (SR)

Reports results of a study in which 72 African-American college students listened to and evaluated a tape-recorded excerpt of a speech in two versions, one in Ebonics and one in Standard English. Finds students rated the speaker who used Standard English as more credible (i.e. , more competent and having a strong character) and more sociable than…

Maintains that the move from theorizing difference to dealing with difference in an intercultural collaboration creates generative conflicts for educators and students. Tracks the conflicting discourses, alternative representations, and political consequences the construct "Black English" had for black and white mentors, teenage writers, and…

Argues that adopting the bilingual model, teaching standard English, and encouraging students to cultivate their native dialects encourages diversity, individuality, creativity, and self-esteem while maintaining conventional standards. (SR)

Lays out some historical background to the replacement of a system of discourse marking in German dialects spoken in the United States, exploring a number of implications for theories of language contact and codeswithing. Data suggest that discourse markers first entered German speech as emblematic codeswitches and eventually became borrowings,…

Describes a teacher-research study using interpretive methods to address the question how learning about language connects secondary students to their world. Profiles three student inquirers, finding the students deepened their awareness of the role language plays in their lives. (NH)

Suggests that discussions about inclusion in the foreign language classroom should address the issues of linguistic diversity and dialectal sensitivity. Discusses models for addressing issues of linguistic diversity in the classroom, and offers a set of activities for training new instructors in recognizing and addressing linguistic biases.…

Derisive attitudes towards Spanish in the United States threaten its survival. Four issues vital to the preservation of Spanish in the United States are examined: the arbitrary nature of linguistic prejudice, the linguistic validity of all dialects, the overwhelming linguistic overlap between nonstandard and standard dialects of Spanish, and the…

Our analysis of farmer and tavern-keeper William Manning's 1798 "Key of Libberty" extends the concept of American republican rhetoric to include both elite and vernacular forms. We find that the key components of Manning's vernacular republicanism are: an aggressive use of the rhetoric of critique; the demand for transparency in public argument;…

Hyphenated identity is a term that references the multiple socially bound features that individuals use to think about themselves. This article examines cultural and linguistic considerations in the understanding of hyphenated identity and discusses the merit of the concept for clinical use in speech-language pathology. The sources used consist of…

There is a need for studies on bilingual language acquisition in combination with language impairment (LI). The speech and language clinician must have tools to differentiate between problems depending on inadequate exposure to a language and problems depending on a LI. Another important issue is the pace of bilingual language acquisition relative…

People frequently make assumptions about others because of their spoken or written use of a particular dialect or language. The varieties of English that people use are often regarded as indicators of corresponding intelligence, competence, motives, and morality. Such assumptions--frequently based on myths and misconceptions about the nature of…