This paper deals with the claims concerning the presumed language deprivation of lower-class blacks, and the findings of sociolinguists that refute these claims. The author asserts that the perceived deficiencies of non-Standard English were largely the product of middle-class intuitive assumptions concerning lower-class speech, and that recent…

This paper makes three arguments reaffirming the overwhelming complexities inherent in any real history of the language of blacks in North America. (1) Although the study of black English, however that term may be defined, is desirable in itself and was profitable for white linguists during the 1960s and early 1970s, it did not and never will do…

A 15-minute interview was conducted separately with 2 5th grade boys (1 Caucasian, 1 Negro) who were matched on IQ and 4 pupil characteristics; home background, personality, social behavior, and academic ability. A semantic differential scale was constructed for the 4 characteristics, and 5 disability labels were assigned to each child:…

Dialects have features of vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation that distinguish them from other varieties of a language; they exist in all languages and occur when members of one group communicate more among themselves than they do with speakers of another group. Black English vernacular (BEV) is a fully formed linguistic system with its own…

This bibliography is divided into five sections. The second, third, fourth, and fifth sections are each devoted to publications in one specified area, American, Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand English respectively. The first section lists bibliographies pertaining to all of these areas. Entries in all sections include both American and…

The results of a study in which eight black kindergarten children responded to a set of structured tasks designed to elicit linguistic constructions which characterize Black English are presented and discussed in this Southwest Regional Laboratory (SWRL) technical note. Some of the children responded with a high rate of nonstandard realizations;…

This study, based on the "Linguistic Atlas," is concerned with the regional and local vocabulary of the Eastern United States. This geographically restricted vocabulary is in daily use among millions of Americans in all walks of life and characterizes them as New Englanders, Pennsylvanians, West Virginians, Virginians, North Carolinians,…

This report describes the design, production, and evaluation of the first six lessons of a self-instructional program in standard English. The program is designed for use by fifth-grade students in Baltimore who are speakers of Baltimore non-standard Negro English. The six lessons were developed, pre-tested, revised, and evaluated in an attempt to…

Linguistic interference as a key factor in the acquisition of reading skills by inner-city black children is explored. Examples of syntactic and phonetic structures in the black dialect which are different from standard English and the role these differences play in beginning reading are given. The use of dialect-based texts allows the child to…

The purpose of this study was to determine if students under typical conditions in the American high school English classroom change their attitudes toward and increase their knowledge about American regional and social dialects as a result of being taught a unit in dialectology. The experimental and control groups were comprised of 291 students…

The purpose of this study was to examine the attitudes of a sample of black teachers toward the use of dialect reading materials for teaching beginning reading skills to black children. An interview-questionnaire method was used to gather data about the attitudes toward dialect-specific materials, using a sample of 90 black teachers in the Lansing…

Reported here is the work of two linguists, William Labov and Paul Cohen, and of two black researchers who know the culture of the inner city, Clarence Robins and John Lewis. Together they explore certain aspects of Black English vernacular (BEV) and certain political and cultural aspects of the black community. Part 1 (chapters 1-4) deals with…

Since the early sixties, the need has existed for linguistic description of the language of the inner city. This dissertation was written to meet this need. Data were collected over a period of two years using the field methods of anthropological linguistics as adapted to an urban situation. Analysis in terms of the data yields a description that…

A representative group of black American novels was examined to discover the extent to which black dialect has been employed by black novelists, to determine the validity of the dialect used, to show a relationship between their representation of dialect and the era in which they lived, and to compare linguistic studies of black dialect with their…

Progress made in the DARE Project, begun in 1965 with the purpose of producing a "Dictionary of American Regional English," is described. Phase 1, the collection of necessary materials, has been completed. Ten Spoken Sources of this material and 12 Written Sources are listed and annotated. It is estimated that the grand total of items in…