The main purpose of this study is to develop a Spanish language screening measure that (a) is valid and reliable for the purpose of identifying Spanish-speaking (SS) children at risk for Language Impairment (LI), (b) is valid and reliable across different Spanish dialects, different socioeconomic groups, and different ethnicities, (c) uses a…

Souto-Manning examines the role of classroom discourse analysis in helping to change a teacher's perceptions of English Language Learners from students who need "fixing" to experts from whom teachers may learn. She finds that blurring the lines between teacher/student and subject/object positions opens up pedagogical third spaces that are often…

The present ethnographic case study investigates how the identities of immigrant minority pupils are constructed in a multicultural classroom in a Flemish primary school. From the analysis of the class teacher's discourse, it emerges that both Flemish native pupils' identities and those of immigrant minority pupils are constructed as homogeneous:…

When children (particularly African Americans) have a different orthography, phonemic system, and deep structure from Standard American English (SAE) speakers, they may have difficulty grasping the correct SAE phonemes represented by the symbols and reading in general. Language acquisition is natural learning centered around the interaction of…

A discussion of the role of sociolinguistics in the treatment of communication disorders focuses on issues related to dialect and language variation. It begins with an examination of linguistic diversity and dynamic description of language, reporting on a study of speech and language pathologists' judgments of sentences in African American…

A collection of essays on linguistic variation in English that distinguishes communities and social groups from one another includes: "Standard English: Biography of a Symbol" (Shirley Brice Heath); "The Rise of Standard English" (Margaret Shaklee); "English Orthography" (Wayne O'Neil); "How Pablo Says 'Love' and…

This paper focuses on a language variation model that incorporates a number of concepts from linguistic and rhetorical studies. The model views language variation as a product of two correlating causes: one, the user and his or her personal, regional, and social dialect; and the other, the user's use of the language in terms of such discourse…

Working on the assumption that listeners would be more convinced and persuaded by a speaker with whom they could identify, a study asked black and white college students to evaluate a speaker with a black or white dialect, introducing them to an innovation in mathematics. Half of the black subjects were randomly assigned to listen to a black…

This study compares the ability of 37 Standard-English-speaking graduate students to comprehend Black English versions of a set of 45 utterances with the ability of 37 comparable students to comprehend Standard English versions of the same utterances. Of the two stimulus tapes used (consisting of 45 sentences each), one was recorded in Black…

This course is designed to give university students an introduction to the varying social and cultural backgrounds of students in inner city communities. Materials in the areas of literature, music, and history are assigned and presented to these future teachers. Class presentations are used to help students to broaden their perspectives and…

A study explored the relationship between oral and written patterns produced by a group of black college freshmen enrolled in remedial writing classes. Forty students were asked to produce, in formal language style, both oral and written summaries of a reading selection. The data were analyzed to determine (1) the extent to which patterns,…

Understanding the nature of American dialects and the basic issues involved in teaching a standard English to speakers of nonstandard dialects is the subject of the inservice teacher education learning package described here. Inservice topics covered are broad phonetic transcriptions of speech and analyzing nonstandard features occurring in…

The term "village English" has been used by a number of people to label the English used by Alaskan natives. The term appears in discussions of educational problems and often the phenomenon is cited as a significant reason for the lower than expected achievement of Alaskan school children. It is suggested that statements about…

A curriculum guide was prepared for the teaching of standard oral English in the Los Angeles junior high schools. This guide focuses particularly on the teaching of standard English to Negro students using a nonstandard dialect. The lessons were designed for use with accompanying tapes and filmstrips. (See also UD 007703 for parallel program to…

Developments in the linguistic and non-linguistic scenes in the Philippines indicate the emergence of a dialect of English that should appropriately be labelled Philippine English. Filipinos paradoxically have emancipated themselves from American English by taking over the code for their own creative uses. Philippine English has become and will…