ERIC Number: ED034806
Record Type: RIE
Publication Date: 1968
Pages: 10
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Language and Learning Styles of Minority Group Children in the United States.
Bailey, Beryl Loftman
The paper focuses on the linguistic behavior of Negro children concentrated in communities where a non-standard form of English is the accepted currency. Such children are verbal, possess a language fully developed to serve the needs of their "world," and think effectively enough to survive in a sometimes hostile environment. Certain basic assumptions must be made in order to communicate with such group: for example, that in non-standard English, time, whether critical or not, is only optionally expressed in the verb if expressed elsewhere in the sentence or indicated by the context. Thus, from the linguist's point of view, the language behavior of this population is highly predictable, and what appears to be occasional divergences from the standard are really parts of a pattern, which every teacher must understand if efficient teaching and learning is to take place in the classroom. This can be said for other minority groups as well, with the modifications made necessary by contrastive analyses of the specific groups' native language and English. (EM)
Descriptors: Bilingualism, Black Dialects, Black Youth, Child Language, Classroom Communication, Disadvantaged, Disadvantaged Youth, Language Patterns, Language Styles, Language Usage, Minority Groups, Non English Speaking, Nonstandard Dialects, Social Dialects, Sociolinguistics, Speech Habits, Student Teacher Relationship, Syntax, Verbal Communication
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Education Level: N/A
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Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: Yeshiva Univ., New York, NY. Ferkauf Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences.
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Note: Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting (1968)