Learning a second dialect entails learning new schemas. Most Australian Aboriginal children live in a bicultural, bidialectal context and are exposed to the discourse of Australian English, so they internalize some of its schemas but may not be able to use its schemas effectively or distinguish them from Aboriginal English schemas. Analysis of the…

Since 1986, KTNN Radio (tribally owned) has broadcast Navajo-language programming to the entire Navajo Nation. Its large broadcast range and position as the "Voice of the Navajo Nation" gives KTNN the "symbolic" power to affect linguistic change, as well as the unenviable position of being held to a high language standard although no such…

This dictionary is designed to provide an inventory of English usage in the Caribbean environment and lifestyle as known and spoken in each territory but not recorded in the standard British and American desk dictionaries. It cross-references different names for the same item throughout the anglophone Caribbean, identifies different items called…

This Powerpoint presentation argues that the problems encountered in implementing African-centered curriculum into the university composition classroom attest to the need for African centered education in kindergarten through university level educational institutions. The solution of the problem of African American students' disproportionate…

In this paper, the author/educator recalls a 1972 article that reviewed 11 books about the English to minorities. Over the years, teaching issues have been debated--one commonly discussed topic of the '90s being Ebonics. The author asserts that the public at large pays no attention to most academic writing. Exploitation of graduate students as…

A study investigated the role of audience awareness in translation of lexical items, specifically as it may affect translation from English to Chinese. The audiences, or readership, in this case is defined as readers from three different regions in which Chinese is used predominantly: Hong Kong; mainland China; and Taiwan. The varieties of Chinese…

This paper argues that if bidialectal education is to be seriously contemplated for Aboriginal Australians, it should be considered with more than the surface structures of dialectal difference. Bidialectal education programs must be underpinned by an understanding of the meanings carried by Aboriginal English and the processes of interpretation…

Argues that the implicit tendency to infer that the sophistication of one's verbal behavior mirrors one's cognitive sophistication must be scrutinized, and demonstrates that the assessment of the verbal behavior of nonstandard speakers must be accomplished via a medium that is not "foreign" to those in question. (Author/JM)

Critical review and discussion of John Macnamara's "Nurseries, Streets and Classrooms," Modern Language Journal, v57 n5-6 p250-4 Sep-Oct 1973. (RL)

Deals with some of the difficult questions that arise when one attempts to handle Black English in the context of helping children learn to read and write. (Author/JM)

Argues that the schools have failed minority group children, that a major cause of this has been a failure to understand the linguistic and cultural backgrounds of such children, and that there must be increased attention given to training educational personnel to bring about this understanding' if education for minority children is to improve."…