Teaching Standard English to Nonstandard Speakers
Some Methodological Issues
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4809784 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Dennis R Craig (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1983 |
| Volume | 52 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 65 |
| Publication date | 1983-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Journal of Negro Education (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0022-2984 • E-ISSN: 2167-6437 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/2294749 |
| OpenAlex | W2077659102 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
In some parts of the Caribbean, such as in rural areas of Jamaica, Guyana, and Belize, the nonstandard speech is an English-influenced creole language in which the vocabulary is largely English but the phonology, morphology and syntax of speech diverges sharply enough from standard English for fluent speakers to be unintelligible to English listeners. In such a situation, a bidialectal languageeducation program for school-age speakers is a tenable goal. But a developmental program in the nonstandard language alone and in conjunction with a change in community attitudes toward nonstandard speech, such as has been advocated1 in the United States of America, would be an unrealistic endeavor. The simple reason for this conclusion is that communicative competence in the nonstandard speech does not co-exist with a constant and reliable mutual intelligibility between standard and nonstandard speakers. In most parts of the Caribbean, there also exists a pattern of speech known as the Caribbean mesolect, which is a varied range of nonstandard speech that bridges the linguistic gap between creole and standard English. It is generally intelligible to speakers of both. In classrooms with completely mesolectal populations, it should, in theory, be possible to follow a monodialectal developmental program in the mesolect, with an appropriate reorientation of community attitudes, such as has been referred to in the paragraph above. Even in classrooms with mixed creole and mesolectal populations, it should, in theory, be possible to follow such a program, since most creole speakers can shift into a mesolectal form of speech when the occasion demands it, although they might be uncomfortable in doing so
Linguistics · Mathematics education · Standard English · Multilingual Education and Policy · Philosophy · Psychology
Trends in Teaching Standard Varieties to Creole and Vernacular Speakers
Slicing the onion
De facto language education policy through teachers’ attitudes and practices
Literacy in Pidgin and Creole Languages
Teachers’ language attitudes and production patterns in St. Kitts
Stigmatized and Standardized Varieties in the Classroom
| Citations per year | 0.22 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 1999 - 2022 (24) |
| Highly cited | No |