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Publication IS DEPRIVATION LINGUISTIC? Suggested Changes for Teacher Training Programs Concerned with Black English(Department of Sociology, University of Kansas, 1973-10-01) Hopper, RobertA linguistic approach to Black English (BE), often called "difference theory," is preferable to its predecessors, but it cannot resolve many problems which exist for speakers of that dialect. Linguists disagree about the nature of BE, who speaks it, the aims of instruction most appropriate for speakers of BE, and strategies most suitable for such instruction. Finally, the best advice that Iinguists can offer about BE is that we should on many occasions try to ignore its linguistic dimensions and concentrate upon its social dimensions. For these reasons, a linguistic perspective, taken by itself, is an inadequate base for training programs designed to help teachers cope with BE. The present paper describes an alternative theory of BE based upon contexts shared by speakers of various dialects. Teacher programs should build awareness of shared contexts within speech situations rather than of details of linguistic performance.Publication A PERSPECTIVE ON SOCIOLINGUISTICS(Department of Sociology, University of Kansas, 1973-10-01) Hartman, James W.Publication Kansas Journal of Sociology, Volume 9, Number 2 (FALL, 1973): Front Matter(Department of Sociology, University of Kansas, 1973-10-01)Publication Kansas Journal of Sociology, Volume 9, Number 2 (FALL, 1973): Back Matter(Department of Sociology, University of Kansas, 1973-10-01)Publication SOME OBSERVATIONS ON SOCIOLINGUISTIC VARIATION AND AMERICAN SIGN LANGUAGE(Department of Sociology, University of Kansas, 1973-10-01) Woodward, James C., Jr.This paper attempts to make a case for the value of studying linguistic and social structures in the U.S. deaf community (and other communities) in a dynamic sociolinguistic framework by presenting a brief outline of the language situation in the deaf community, some specific facts on linguistic variation in the deaf community, the correlation of the linguistic variation with selected social variables, and the relevance of this kind of research to sociology and the deaf community.Publication SOCIOLINGUISTICS AND LINGUISTIC GEOGRAPHY(Department of Sociology, University of Kansas, 1973-10-01) McDavid, Raven I., Jr.; O'Cain, Raymond K.Sociolinguistics and linguistic geography should be considered as complementary rather than mutually contradictory approaches to the phenomena of language variation. Linguistic geography is a branch of historical linguistics based on samples of the stable and traditional, and necessarily somewhat biased in the selection of small communities, older informants, and traditional cultures; however, it provides a framework for interpreting studies of varied populations-in both rural and urban communities. The authors review criticisms of both linguistic geography and of sociolinguistics applications of linguistic geography, and suggest directions in which the findings of linguistic geography may be useful to sociolinguists and others in matters of interdisciplinary cooperation.Publication THE AMERICAN KOINE-ORIGIN, RISE, AND PLATEAU STAGE(Department of Sociology, University of Kansas, 1973-10-01) Dillard, J. L.The early dialect history of the British immigrants to the United States involved a leveling process, leading to the formation of a koine. Reports from British travelers in the eighteenth century indicate a "striking uniformity" in the English of the American colonists. Comparison with the early reports from Australia, and with general works on the theory of languages in migration, indicates that the development of a koine would be expected in a situation of the type pre.vailing, where dominant regional patterns of settling in the new country cannot be convincingly shown. Since observers in the late eighteenth century begin to be critical of American usage, it is concluded that the koine stage was drawing to a close by that time and individual American dialects were developing. It is concluded that the formation of those new dialects was traceable to influences other than the regional dialects of more recent immigrants from England.Publication BLACK ENGLISH AND THE AMERICAN VALUE SYSTEM(Department of Sociology, University of Kansas, 1973-10-01) Drake, Glendon F.The strategy of enlightened bi-dialectalism used by the schools in the United States to deal with the problem of Black English is a significant attempt at social engineering. This attempt is motivated by basic linguistic attitudes which reflect the American value system. Bi-dialectalism is a melting-pot theory of American culture, an attempt to implement the American Dream of social mobility for all. This value operates in concert with the school's prescriptive linguistic attitude, through a co-optive strategy, against a pluralistic ethic. Bi-dialectalists err not in supposing code-switching is feasible, but in supposing that the school is the primary and proper agency for implementing code-switching. The failure of twentieth-century relativism to penetrate the school's value system so far as "English" is concerned has frozen the school in the nineteenth century in terms of linguistic attitudes.Publication ON LANGUAGE USE AND SOCIAL STRUCTURE(Department of Sociology, University of Kansas, 1973-10-01) Luhman, Reid A.The emerging field of sociolinguistics is a response to numerous roadblocks encountered in the more specific area of linguistics. One of the more important of these roadblocks occurred in attempts to provide a linguistic explanation of bilingualism through interpreting languages in contact in terms of an interference perspective. Such a perspective emphasizes structural aspects of languages as explanations of changes in either (or any) language within the contact situation. The language contact situation, however, made extremely evident that explanations of language use must include social factors. In the case of bilingualism, the more general sociolinguistic perspective emphasizes inter-relations between language use and socially constructed situations at the micro level. At the micro level, language forms can be viewed as tools with which social meanings are constructed and communicated, each utterance thereby containing an information aspect (which is obvious) and a more general social aspect. At the macro level, language forms become markers of the relations between and among complex social groups and, in this sense, reflect the more purely sociological concerns of class and stratification. The upshot of this new perspective is that all utterances come to be viewed as tools and containers of social meaning regardless of whether those utterances come from one recognized language or from six recognized languages; people use their sounds to discriminate meaning and will accomplish that discrimination with whatever system they have at hand. Hence, through a sociolinguistic perspective, bilingualism becomes but a special case of this process.Publication HISTORICAL, PROCEDURAL AND PEDAGOGICAL ASPECTS OF SOCIOLINGUISTICS(Department of Sociology, University of Kansas, 1973-10-01) Denning, Gerald L.A brief presentation is made concerning historical aspects of the development of sociol inguistics. Certain concepts and procedures used in data analysis are described and exemplified. And the application of sociolinguistics to pedagogy is discussed.Publication THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL AND LINGUISTIC PILGRIMAGE OF YIDDISH (SOME EXAMPLES OF FUNCTIONAL AND STRUCTURAL PIDGINIZATION AND DEPIDGINIZATION)(Department of Sociology, University of Kansas, 1973-10-01) Fishman, Joshua A.The second in a series of case studies of societies in which the mother tongue is merely the process language but not target language of education. This paper reviews the changes in Yiddish orthography which have paralleled its users' views as to its proper functions. Hebrew and German have both served as models and as anti-models for Yiddish orthography, resulting in four recognizable clusters of orthographies over a period of nearly one thousand years of printed use: both toward Hebrew and toward German, toward Hebrew but away from German, toward German but away from Hebrew, and, in most recent days, away from Hebrew and away from German. Change in orthographic models has always accompanied change in lexical and syntactic models as well and, all in all, been indicative of users' views as to the internal diglossia and the external diglossia relationships into which Yiddish should be involved.