Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T10:36:36.350Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Prevalent Attitudes and School Policy toward Non-standard Dialects

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2015

E.M. Fisher
E.M. Fisher*
Affiliation:
Wagaman Primary Darwin, N.T.
Get access

Extract

We, as teachers, usually find it difficult to accept the oral language patterns that some of our pupils bring to school. “We are prone to inject an element of morality into our pseudo-standard of English.” (Cheney 1976, p.58).

As Hall (1959) so ably comments, “Our native speech is inextricably bound to our perception of friends, community, religion, nation and other peoples.”

Basically, non-standard dialects are viewed either as a deficit form of standard English or a different but equal language system. These are basically the two main models. Wolfram (1973, p.68) says that, in the deficit model, speech differences are viewed and described with reference to a norm and deviation from that norm. The control group norm is, of course, middle-class speech or standard English. Nonconformity to this norm is seen as an indication of retarded language acquisition or under-developed language. Nonstandard dialects are considered as the pathology of non-organic speech deficiencies, and the patterns of these dialects are labelled with such terms as ‘misarticuiations’; ‘deviations’; ‘replacements’; ‘faulty pronunciations’ and the like.

The ‘difference’ model sees non-standard dialects as self-contained systems in their own rights. They have their own phonological and grammatical rules and are equally legitimate both socially and psychologically, as well as being syntactically functionally equivalent to standard English.

Type
Across Australia …… From Teacher to Teacher
Information
The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education , Volume 5 , Issue 4 , August 1977 , pp. 17 - 20
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1977

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bereiter, C. & Engelman, S.: Teaching Disadvantaged Children in the Preschool. Prentice Hall, N.J. 1966.Google Scholar
Bernstein, B.: Language and Social Class, British Journal of Sociology. 11, 1960.Google Scholar
Bernstein, B.: Social structure language and learning. Educational Research. 3, 1960.Google Scholar
Burling, R.: English in Blaok and White. Holt/Rinehart and Winston, N.Y., 1973.Google Scholar
Cheyney, A.B.: Teaching the Culturally Disadvantaged in the Elementary School. C.E. Merrill, Ohio, 1976.Google Scholar
Dale, P.S.: Language Development Structure and Function. Uni. Washington, Dryden Press, Illinois, 1972.Google Scholar
Hall, E.T.: The Silent Language. Premier Bk. Fawcett World Library, N.Y., 1959.Google Scholar
Johnson, K.R.: Teachers’ Attitudes towards the Non-standard Negro Dialect – ‘Let’s Change it’. Elementary English No. 48, Feb. 1971. (a)Google Scholar
Johnson, K.R.: Should Black Children Learn Standard English. Viewpoints, Vol.47, 2, Mar. 1971.Google Scholar
Gumperz, J.: The Speech Community. International Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences. Macmillan, London, 1968.Google Scholar
Hymes, D. (Ed.): Language in Culture and Society. Harper/Row Pub. N.Y., 1964.Google Scholar
Kohl, H.: Fifty-Six Children. New America Lib. 1968. Penguin, London, 1971.Google Scholar
Labov, W.: The Language of Non-standard English, 1969. In Giglioli, P.P. (Ed.) Language and Social Context. Penguin, London, 1972.Google Scholar
Wolfram, W.: The Nature of Non-standard Divergence. In Savage, J.F., Linguistics for Teachers. S.R.A. 1973.Google Scholar