Dialects in Schools and Communities

by Walt Wolfram, Carolyn Adger, Donna Christian

This book describes dialect differences in American English and their impact on education and everyday life. It explores some of the major issues that confront educational practitioners and suggests what practitioners can do to recognize students' language abilities, support their language development, and expand their knowledge about dialects. Topics addressed include:
*popular concerns about the nature of language variation;
*characteristic structures of different dialects;
*various interactive patterns characteristic of social groups;
*the school impacts of dialect differences in speaking, writing, and reading, including questions about teaching Standard English; and
*the value of dialect education in schools to enable students to understand dialects as natural and normal language phenomena.

Changes in the Second Edition: In this edition the authors reconsider and expand their discussion of many of the issues addressed in the first edition and in other of their earlier works, taking into account especially the research on dialects and publications for audiences beyond linguistics that have appeared since the first edition. This edition is offered as an updated report on the state of language variation and education in the United States.

Dialects in Schools and Communities is rooted in questions that have arisen in workshops, surveys, classes, discussion groups, and conversations with practitioners and teacher educators. It is thus intended to address important needs in a range of educational and related service fields. As an overview of current empirical research, it synthesizes current understandings and provides key references--in this sense it is a kind of translation and interpretation in which the authors' goal is to bring together the practical concerns of educators and the vantage point of sociolinguistics. No background in linguistics or sociolinguistics is assumed on the part of the reader.

This volume is intended for teacher interns and practicing teachers in elementary and secondary schools; early childhood specialists; specialists in reading and writing; speech/language pathologists; special education teachers; and students in various language specialties.

240 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Walt Wolfram (born February 15, 1941) is a sociolinguist at North Carolina State University, specializing in social and ethnic dialects of American English. He was one of the early pioneers in the study of urban African American English through his work in Detroit in 1969. Since the 1960s he has authored or co-authored 20 books and more than 300 articles on variation in American English. He was an active participant in the 1996 debate surrounding the Oakland Ebonics controversy, supporting the legitimacy of African American English as a systematic language system. In addition to African American English, Wolfram has written extensively about Appalachian English, Puerto Rican English, Lumbee English, and on many dialects of North Carolina, particularly of rural, isolated communities such as Ocracoke Island.

Wolfram received his B.A. from Wheaton College in 1963 and his Ph.D. from Hartford Seminary Foundation in 1969, studying under Roger Shuy. He has been on the faculty at Georgetown University, the University of the District of Columbia, was the Director of Research at the Center for Applied Linguistics from 1980 to 1992, and in 1992 was named the first William C. Friday Distinguished University Professor of English Linguistics at North Carolina State University. Wolfram is former President of the Linguistic Society of America as well as the American Dialect Society. In 2008, he was honored with the prestigious John Tyler Caldwell Award for the Humanities from the North Carolina Humanities Council, a statewide nonprofit and affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. In 2010, he was awarded the Linguistics, Language and the Public award by the Linguistic Society of America. In 2013, he was awarded the North Carolina Award, the highest award given to a North Carolina citizen. Wolfram's book with Jeffrey Reaser, Talkin' Tar Heel: How our Voices Tell the Story of Story of North Carolina (2014 UNC Press), was the first popular linguistics book to embed more than 100 video and audio clips through the use of QRs.

In 1993, Wolfram formulated the principle of linguistic gratuity, which states that "investigators who have obtained linguistic data from members of a speech community should actively pursue ways in which they can return linguistic favors to the community". He directs the North Carolina Language and Life project at North Carolina State University. He has been involved in the production of television documentaries on dialect diversity (often in collaboration with Neal Hutcheson), the construction of museum exhibits, and the development of dialect awareness curricula for the schools and general public.

Reviews

[Ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

only needed Chapters 1 & 2 for my paper. Excellent study of dialects: definitions, origins - Is there a standard English?