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REF OR TRESUMES ED 015 479 AL 001 013 TEACHING A SECOND DIALECT AND SOME IMPLICATIONS FOR TESOL.. BY- CARROLL, WILLIAM S. FEIGENBAUM, IRWIN TEACHERS OF ENGLISH TO SPEAKERS OF OTHER LANGUAGES PUB DATE SEP 67 EDITS PRICE MF-$0.25 HC-$0.48 10F. DESCRIPTORS- *TENL, *NEGRO DIALECTS, *NONSTANDARD DIALECTS, DIALECT STUDIES, ENGLISH (SECOND LANGUAGE), * CONTRASTIVE LINGUISTICS, INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS CENTERS, INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS, URBAN LANGUAGE STUDY, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, THE RESEARCH DESCRIBED HERE IS BEING CARRIED OUT BY THE URBAN LANGUAGE STUDY OF THE CENTER FOR APPLIED LINGUISTICS. THE PRINCIPLE TASK OF THE PROJECT IS TO STUDY THE SPEECH OF NEGRO CHILDREN IN A LOW SOCIO-ECONOMIC AREA IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. SPECIAL MATERIALS FOR TEACHING STANDARD ENGLISH TO SPEAKERS OF NONSTANDARD NEGRO DIALECTS ARE BEING PREPARED ON THE BASIS OF THE CONTRASTIVE ANALYSES RESULTING FROM THIS STUDY. A BASIC ASSUMPTION OF THE URBAN LANGUAGE STUDY IS THAT THE NONSTANDARD NEGRO DIALECT DIFFERS SYSTEMATICALLY FROM STANDARD AMERICAN ENGLISH IN GRAMMATICAL STRUCTURE, AS WELL AS IN PHONOLOGY AND LEXICON. WHILE NO "VERY COMPLETE OR DEFINITIVE STATEMENTS" HAVE AS YET BEEN MADE ABOUT THE NEGRO DIALECT VERB SYSTEM, ENOUGH DATA HAS BEEN ANALYZED TO 7NDICATE PARTICULAR PROBLEM AREAS. THESE MATERIALS BEING DEVELOPED AND USED IN EXPERIMENTAL CLASSES IN WASHINGTON, D.C. ARE DESIGNED NOT TO REPLACE THE "INFORMAL, NONSTANDARD VARIETY OF ENGLISH SPOKEN BY A LARGE NUMBER OF STUDENTS," BUT TO TEACH THE STUDENTS TO CONTROL AN ADDITIONAL VARIETY--A STANDARD DIALECT. PRESENTED BY THE AUTHORS AT THE TESOL CONVENTION IN APRIL 1967, THIS ARTICLE IS PUBLISHED IN THE "TESOL QUARTERLY," VOLUME 1, NUMBER 3, SEPTEMBER 1967, INSTITUTE OF LANGUAGES AND LINGUISTICS, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY, WASHINGTON, D.C. 20007. (AMM) Ln TESOL QUARTERLY c, en Volume 1 September, 1967 Number 3 14.1 Table of Contents The Modular Mousetrap Earl W. Stevick 3 Innocents AbroadTeaching the American Novel Overseas John Ashmead11 Testing Aural Comprehension: A Culture Fair Approach Theodore H. Plaister17 Some Acoustic Parameters of Speech and Their Relationships to the Perception of Dialect Differences Clara N. Bush 20 /Teachinga Second Dialect and Some William S. Carroll Implications for TESOL and Irwin Feigenbaum31 Secondary School Composition: Problems and Practices Mary Finocchiaro40 Inference Expressed by Should and Must Eugene V. Mohr 47 SOme Important Oddities of English Phonetics Francis A. Cartier52 A Selected Annotated Bibliography of "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS American Literature for TESOL: Ama S. Harris COPYM TM MATERIAL HAS BFINZANTED , Part IThe Novel and Allan C. Harris56 BY TO ERIC AND ORGANIZATIONS OPERATING Reviews UNDER AGPEEMENTS WITH THE U.S. OFFICE OF Workpapers in English as a Second Language (M. Imhoof) 63 EDUCATION. FURTHER REPRODUCTION OUTSIDE THE ERIC SYSTEM REQUIRES PERMISSION OF THE COPYRIGHT OWNER." Starting English Early (K. K. Sutherland) 65 4 Announcements 67 Publications Received 68 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION & WELFARE OFFICE OF EDUCATION THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRODUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FROMTHE PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIGINATING IT. POINTS OF VIEW OR OPINIONS 13 STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRESENT OFFICIAL OFFICE OF EDUCATION 01,001 0 POSITION OR POLICY. Teaching A SecondDialect and Some Implications forTESOL William S. Carroll and IrwinFeigenbaum Editor's note: These twopapers appear together under acover title because they are felt to complement each other both insubject matter and in Lpproachtoward the problem of dialect in theWashington, D.C. area. Thepapers were originally presented at the TESOL Convention,April 1967, but they have beenrevised somewhat to avoid duplication inideas. Mr. Carroll is Coozdinator ofthe English asa Foreign Language Program at Georgetown University, and Mr. Feigenbaumis Project Linguist at the Centerfor Applied Linguistics in the UrbanLanguage Study and Materials Project. Development PART ONE A Teaching Experiment William S. Carroll In recent years the professionalin- The Urban Language Study choseas terest of linguists in the natureof dia-a field research site a homogeneous lect has been increasing.This haslower income Negro neighborhoodwith been accompanied bya heighteneda fairly stable population in Washing- awareness of the educational problemston, D. C. Observationwas begun with in, especially, the innercity schools,groups of children and informant work in which arenow enrolled largo num-started, mostly with boys fromeight to bers of speakers of non-standardEn-fourteen years old. An applicationof glish. With this in mind, theUrbanthis analysis is to attack theproblems Language Studywas begun at theof teaching standard Englishto speak- Center for' Applied Linguisticsiners of this dialect. The techniqueswe Washington, D. C. The basictask ofadopted to do thisare the techniques the projectwas and is to study theused in teaching Englishas a foreign speech of Negro childrenof a lowlanguage. socio-economic class.1 A position basic to theUrban Lan- guage Study is that non-standard Ne- 2The Urban Language Studywas begungro dialect has a grammar of itsown in October, 1965 with fundsprovided bywhich differs systematically the Ford Foundation. In* November,1966 from the the Carnegie Corporation madea grant togrammar of standard American En. support the project through June,1969. glish. This view has beenamply sub- The objectives of the studyare (1) to analyze the nonstandard dialect ofEnglishstantiated by the researchthus far spoken by Negro children ofa lower socio-conducted. The data which havebeen economic stratum in the Districtof Colum-analyzed suggest that this dialectdif- bia, (2) to contrast the featuresof the dia- lect with those of standard English,and (3)fers from standard Englishnot only to prepare materials for teachingstandardin phonology and lexicon butin gram- English in the schools. matical structure. 31 32 TESOL QUARTERLY Perhaps we should pause before go-language-teaching techniques applica- ing any further and attempt to defineble in teaching standard English to what we mean by "Negro non-standardspeakers of other dialects? Are there dialect." It is certainly not the speechenough differences to make the adop- of every Negro; many Negroes com-tion of new techniques worthwhile? If mand standard English. But it is thewe adopt the traditional viewpoint first dialect learned by children in mosttoward dialect study, that dialects ex- urban lower-class Negro families.Ithibit only fairly minor vocabulary and is their basic language experience, evenpronunciationdifferences,then we though they may, as they grow up,will probably feel that the differences acquire a command of the standard orare not great enough to require such at least shift their speech in the direc-an effort. But it can be demonstrated tion of the standard. It is then notthat there are not just a few differences Negro in an inclusive sense, because alland not just minor differences. Negroes do not speak such a dialect. In standard English, for example, It israther, Negro in an exclusivenouns are inflected to show possession sense because a person who is not aand plurality. In the dialect, nouns Negro is not likely at all to have apreceded by a word indicating plural- command of this dialect. ity, such as numerals and other quali- When we say that there are differ-fiers, are not inflected for plurality. ences between Negro non-standard andThe speakers of the dialect say things standard American English, we do notsuch as: A hamburger cost twenty-five mean, obviously, that everything iscent. Where there is no such indicator different. There are broad areas thatof plurality, the noun is marked, as in: are the same in both varieties. I was playin' wif de boys. Finally, what we say about Negro There is no possessive inflection. dialect applies to the speech of ourPossession is indicated by juxtaposi- informants and the speech communitiestion. De man coat or my grar' jaw to which they belong. We are talkinghouse are the dialect equivalents of about Negro speech in Washington,the man's coat and my grandfather's D. C. It is interesting to note thathouse. other researchers in other cities are If we look at the verb system of the discovering many of the same featuresdalect, we find even more striking dif- that we are. For example, problems offerences. in standard English, verbs classroom performance related to thehave a third person singular inflection absence of the third person singularin the present general. This inflection inflection of the verb and the absencedoes not exist in the dialect. He work of the copula have been noted in sev-at the post office is the equivalent of eral places. But just how general anyHe works at the post office. one feature may be is still to be de- In the dialect, He is sick is expressed termined. as either He sick (today) or He be To return to the discussion of oursick (all the time). The absence of approach to the teaching problemsthe copula in one sentence, which is mentioned above, the following ques-a complete sentence in the dialect, in- tions should be raised. Are foreign-dicates that the action or state is tem- TEACHING A SECOND DIALECT 33 porary. The use of be indicates thatseems further to be determined by the the state or action is general or repeti-presence or absence of time adverbs tive. This is a structural distinctionand other contextual clues. We still that does not exist in standard English.do not know enough about the verb He is sick is the only structure possiblesystem to make very completeor defi-