The English spoken by second generation Puerto Ricans in Harlem is influenced by black English heard in the surrounding community, standard English used in the school, and the Spanish-influenced English used by the first generation Puerto Rican community. The study of these influences is conducted according to recently developed sociolinguistic…

The mathematical models of intonation used in speech technology are often inaccessible to linguists. By the same token, phonological descriptions of intonation are rarely used by speech technologists, as they cannot be implemented directly in applications. Consequently, these research communities do not benefit much from each other's insights. In…

This transcript of and guide to a two-cassette course designed to assist New Yorkers in erasure of their accents can be used for either individual or group study. Narrative and taped demonstrations of Standard American English that pinpoint typical phonological barriers and pronunciation difficulties are outlined. The author's own system of…

This study examines the possible relationship between elementary and secondary students' use of a nonstandard form of English and the high school dropout rate in the Southern Appalachian region. The investigation began in two counties with interviews of teachers who appeared not to see that their students' speech variety differed from their own.…

A number of claims made by Bereiter and Engelmann, two of the strongest proponents of the verbal-deprivation hypothesis, are examined in light of data gathered during a longitudinal study of two children acquiring Black English Vernacular. The "giant-word syndrome" and its proposed concomitants of absence of developmental stages, deviant…

Children who speak Black English may have difficulty in acquiring reading skills because of negative teacher attitudes about their dialect and because of inappropriate initial reading material. Although some solutions have been suggested, few have been investigated. (BJG)

A study investigated whether fluency in oral reading, as indicated by proper intonation, could be used as a measure of college students' reading comprehension. The study was designed to look at the three features of intonation--pitch, stress, and juncture--separately and in combination to determine whether any one or a combination of all the…

The paper examines aspects involved in providing an accurate evaluation of speech and language of culturally different preschool children. Dialectical differences of Spanish and Black English speakers are detailed. Culturally based nonverbal behaviors and situational factors, including touching behavior and eye contact, are considered. Cultural…

The use of holistic cognitive style in black language is discussed in this paper. Two types of cognitive style, analytic and holistic, are identified. Holistic thinkers are described as socially oriented while analytical thinkers are characterized as task oriented. Evidence is given to support the claim that blacks tend to be holistic thinkers and…

This report is intended as a preliminary survey of the problems in the collection and sociological analysis of student slang. Dealing with the notion that every speaker handles a variety of registers and tends to choose among them in accordance with the particular social situation in which he finds himself, this study isolates some of the…

Drawing on personal observations and on a study of patient reactions, this paper considers the problem of doctor/patient communication failure in the inner city clinic. It first discusses the role of dialect variation in communication failure, causes of communication failure in the medical interview, factors contributing to doctor/patient…

This volume consists of the following ten papers, which were presented at the second Hokan-Yuman Languages Workshop, held at the University of California at San Diego in June 1976: (1) "The Havasupai Writing System," by Rena Crook, Leanne Hinton, and Nancy Stenson; (2) "The Upland Yuman Numeral System," by Martha B. Kendall;…

THE PURPOSE OF THIS STUDY WAS TO TEST THE EFFECTIVENESS OF A PROGRAM UTILIZING TAPE RECORDED RESPONSIVE LESSONS TO HELP URBAN PRIMARY CHILDREN DEVELOP A STANDARD ENGLISH DIALECT. AN EXPERIMENTAL GROUP OF 36 CHILDREN HEARD AND RECITED 8- TO 10-MINUTE TAPES OF POEMS, SONGS, AND SPEECH GAMES, WHILE 36 CHILDREN IN A CONTROL GROUP WERE INSTRUCTED IN…

THE SCIENCE OF LINGUISTICS CAN, IF INTELLIGENTLY APPLIED, AID THE TEACHER OF ENGLISH IN CONVINCING STUDENTS THAT LANGUAGE IS A MEDIUM THEY CAN CONTROL BY LEARNING ABOUT ITS STRUCTURE. KNOWLEDGE OF THE PROCESSES BY WHICH CHILDREN LEARN LANGUAGE WILL LEAD ENGLISH TEACHERS TO RECOGNIZE THE STRENGTH OF BEHAVIOR PATTERNS IN USAGE AND NONSTANDARD…

The author notes the problems arising from the dichotomy between literary Arabic and the spoken varieties. The thousand-year-old system of teaching literary Arabic, the archaic elements of grammar, and the writing system are discussed. The written history of the literary language is presented in three stages--(1) the pre-Islamic classical, (2) the…