Proposals by a school board in California to recognize the dialect used by most of its pupils unleashed a ferocious media attack. Why did the press get things so wrong, and why were the proposals so virulently ridiculed?
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 51 print issues and online access
$199.00 per year
only $3.90 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
References
New York Times, 24 December 1996.
Economist p. 40, 4–10 January 1997.
Williams, R. L. Ebonics: The True Language of Black Folks (Institute of Black Studies, St Louis, 1975).
Boas, F. Introduction. Handbook of American Indian Languages (Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1911).
Labov, W. in Language and Social Context (ed. Giglioli, P.) 179–215 (Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1972).
Will, G. 58 boys and the larger scheme of things. San Francisco Chronicle, 1 January 1997.
Cleaver, E., Los Angeles Times, 31 January 1997.
Osterberg, T. Bilingualism and the First School Language. (Vasterbottens Trycheri, Umea, 1961).
Taylor, H. Standard English, Black English and Bidialectalism (Lang, New York, 1989).
Piestrup, A. M. Black Dialect Interference and Accommodation of Reading Instruction in First Grade (Monogr. 4, Language Behavior Res. Lab., Univ. California, Berkeley, 1973).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Pullum, G. Language that dare not speak its name. Nature 386, 321–322 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1038/386321a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/386321a0
