Examples from upper primary classrooms in Scotland and Jamaica demonstrate the subtle ways in which teachers support or restrict the classroom use of community languages (Scots and Patwa) through their broad or narrow implementation of language policy. The metaphor of fractals, derived from complexity theory, can form a sensitive and appropriate…

Reviews anthropological studies and demonstrates how the term "literate" has replaced the term "civilized" and how literacy is currently used to distinguish between different social groups in modern, technological societies. Discusses how teachers of English are actually teaching a set of oral and written social practices associated with the…

The Language Services Department in the Cleveland Heights-University Heights (Ohio) City School District is presented as a model for the extension of language support services in public schools. Described are the district's Bilingual Education, English as a Second Language, and English as a Standard Dialect programs. Appendices include…

An overview of contemporary Hispanic dialectology, focusing on phonological phenomena, syntax, classification schemes, and bilingual communities, demonstrates that dialectology has long ceased to be the collection of innumerable surface deviations. It is suggested that dialectology is a theoretical discipline searching for universal principles to…

Although Eskimo languages are commonly characterized as displaying rather "free" word order compared to major western European languages, West Greenlandic (WG) has a clearly dominant, pragmatically neutral ordering pattern. It is argued that WG behaves more like Slavic languages. (Contains 36 references.) (LB)

A discussion of language policy formation and planning in Hong Kong covers the following: language use, change, and shift (including Chinese dialects, written Chinese, Mandarin, and English); the legal system; educational developments. Reasons for the lack of language planning are noted. (Contains 111 references.) (LB)

Salient lexical, phonetic, and morphological peculiarities of the vernacular French of Quebec are examined and explained, and similarities to European popular French are discussed, both as a guide to texts written in the vernacular and to place this variety in its sociolinguistic context. (Author/MSE)

Traces the history of Africans in Mexico and the Costa Chica and compares elements of the regional speech as described in a 1958 study with data collected on-site in 1991-1992. Findings indicate that the successful introduction of public education coupled with the ubiquity of the mass media have reduced or eliminated the more distinctively…

Demonstrates that (1) second-language (L2) textbooks used in the L2 Spanish classroom, at the high school and college level, misrepresent the fundamental concept of dialects, and (2) the textbooks ignore certain important elements of dialects that would be beneficial to the L2 student as listener. (41 references) (GLR)

Language usage patterns of popular singers from different ethnic backgrounds were studied to identify possible linguistic conditioning regarding use of the Mizrahi dialect. The data suggest that there is an unconscious and hyperaccommodative, rather than hypercorrective, pull toward the dominant norm. Contains 74 references. (LB)

Nonnative institutionalized varieties of English (NIVEs) are placed within a wide framework that includes the study of language contact and language acquisition in general. NIVEs and other contact varieties are explored from a sociolinguistic as well as second-language acquisition perspective. (105 references) (Author/LB)

A study of subject-verb agreement in 3-year-old speakers of Brazilian Portuguese found an overall low error rate, but with important contrasts in both frequency of production of different verb inflections and rate of agreement errors associated with them, suggesting subject-verb agreement is acquired piecemeal and the learning of particular verb…

Focuses on the limitations of traditional standardized psychoeducational assessments for Ebonics speakers and describes alternative measures that may yield more accurate results for these students. Also highlights the implications of traditional and nontraditional assessment approaches for test developers, evaluators, educators, and students.…

Discusses historical and contemporary issues surrounding the debate about the Oakland (California) public schools proposal on the teaching of Ebonics and suggests lessons to be learned from it. Chief among these lessons is the need to identify strategies for teaching Standard English that validate the students' own language and culture. (SLD)

Examined a staff-development program in a large urban California school district that exposed participants to African-American culture and features of African-American English. Preliminary findings for 32 teachers show that they easily incorporate display, ritual, and situated enactment into their teaching but have not made many other…