DIALECTS IN SCHOOLS AND COMMUNITIES. Walt Wolfram,Carolyn Temple Adger, and Donna Christian. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1999. Pp. xi + 239.$49.95 cloth, $24.95 paper.

Abstract

Teachers will find this book useful both for self-study and teaching. The linguist-authors introduce nonspecialist readers to the rich landscape of local and parochial ways of speaking that still exist in the United States, despite the uniforming pressures from the language of the national media and leveling effects on language of individual mobility. They account for linguistic facts of differences between dialects (in chapters 1 and 2 and the appendix) and also between different discourse styles (chapter 3). They do this with respect for differences between people. A major purpose of the book is to counter misconceptions that dialect speakers are somehow deficient. They are not, of course. They are anchored in the local community or group, and this local grounding is socially-psychologically sound and represents a very positive value indeed; or from another neutral perspective, they simply talk differently. Dialects are good or different, but never bad, unless people think others are bad just because they talk differently. The book helps any reader shed such groundless prejudice.