In response to Carolyn's query, I could suggest a number of works; but
here is one that is sure to fire hot discussion, esp. if your classes
include African American students: James Sledd wrote an article way back
in 1969 that just blew me away when I read it. It's called
'Bi-Dialectalism: The Linguistics of White Supremacy', and it appeared in
Larry Samovar & Richard Porter's anthology 'Intercultural Communication',
publ. by Wadsworth in 1972.
 
The article requires some contextualization, because it is so close in
time to the heat of the civil rights movement, but its message is still
strong and clear these -- nearly -- 30 years later. Before I read it, I
was a committed bidialectalist (believing that the way to serve
minority-dialect students was to make them fluent in the standard dialect
in addition to their native dialect). Sledd made me think about this in a
whole new way, and really turned my mind around. I recognized the
inequality inherent in the bidialectal approach. (Not that we aren't
still stuck with that as the most practical option, but it certainly pays
very well to think it through; and it gives students in the position of
having to master a second dialect a strong voice.)
 
I would also recommend anything by Walt Wolfram and his colleagues. There
is a very nice little book called 'dialects & education' that treats the
impact of nonstandard dialects on education in specific ways -- reading,
special ed., etc. It's out of print, but your library might have it.
Authors: Walt Wolfram & Donna Christian.
 
These works address the dialect-variation aspect of the correctness
issue. There is also a style aspect; I am not, off the bat, familiar with
sources on that, although Evelyn Hatch's book 'Discourse & Language
Education touches on some of the major differences between spoken and
written (we should really say formal and informal) language; see also
McCarthy and Carter, 'Language as Discourse'. These don't address
correctness issues directly, but provide a background teachers can work
from in framing a class discussion.
 
Johanna
 
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Johanna Rubba   Assistant Professor, Linguistics              ~
English Department, California Polytechnic State University   ~
San Luis Obispo, CA 93407                                     ~
Tel. (805)-756-2184  E-mail: [log in to unmask]      ~
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