Monday, September 20, 2010

Vernacular Language Varieties in Educational Settings: Research and Development

by Reaser & Temple Adger

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=8nc6nRRbMSQC&oi=fnd&pg=PA161&dq=%22dialect+awareness%22&ots=nCGljSuW9F&sig=CRuVGCNVUiWIL4oH_cNeo1xCaXQ#v=onepage&q=%22dialect%20awareness%22&f=false

There is need for curriculum for teachers not specially trained in linguistics to teach acceptance of dialect diversity.

So maybe I can create a curriculum for FYC teachers?

A Critical Spproach to Standard English

by Anne Lobeck
In Language in the Schools

Traditional, prescriptive grammar is still taught in schools although it doesn't accurately describe the rules for Standard English. "Public attitudes support traditional approaches."

Lobeck goes on to explain how teaching about dialects and registers can help students more than teaching "traditional" grammar.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Language awareness

This book has a very different idea of language awareness. COmposition studies and linguists use the term very differently.

http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/newcatalog.aspx?isbn=0312463162&disc=English&course=Composition&detail=toc

Diversity, Ideology, and Teaching Writing

http://www.jstor.org/stable/357563

by Maxine Hairston

She thinks it's bad for FYC teachers to teach about politics or diversity. She highlights Marxism in FYC courses and says that English departments shouldn't let literary critics run things. She says we should just teach writing, period, free of democratic ideals.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

A Review of Developmental and Applied Language Research on African American Children: From a Deficit to Difference Perspective on Dialect Differences

by stockman

because absence of inflectional morphology and substitution of /f/ for /th/ is a symptom of language disorders in native speakers of SAE, AAVE speaking children are sometimes sent to special ed. Clinicians need to know about dialects!

Unendangered dialects, endanegred people

by Labov

"The argument of this paper may be outlined as follows:
• African American Vernacular English [AAVE] is not an endangered dialect; on
the contrary, it is continuing to develop and diverge from other dialects.
• The primary condition for such divergence is residential segregation.
• Residential segregation, combined with increasing poverty, has led to a
deterioration of many features of social life in the inner cities.
• In these conditions, a majority of children in inner city schools are failing to learn
to read, with a developing cycle of poverty, crime and shorter life span.
• A reduction of residential segregation will lead to greater contact between
speakers of AAVE and speakers of other dialects.
• If at some future date, the social conditions that favor the divergence of AAVE"

Sustaining language diversity

by Wolfram

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=eEjl6gZfmhwC&oi=fnd&pg=PA187&dq=dialect+awareness&ots=is4C16fJ70&sig=bmJ4btBUqOsAiCAynpX_EYEKex4#v=onepage&q=dialect%20awareness&f=false

Linguists are obligated to get the message of language diversity out. Unfortunately, service is devalued in the academy.

There is a market for documentaries on language diversity.