Word: dillard
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Pidgin. That theory receives its first book-length substantiation with the publication of Black English (Random House, $10). In it, Linguist J.L. Dillard of the University of Puerto Rico describes how slaves were forced to develop their own lingua franca because traders usually separated groups speaking the same language in order to hinder communication and thereby prevent revolts. The slaves taught each other pidgin varieties of their masters' language...
Black English retained some African words that later entered into Standard English (examples: goober, jazz and banjo). More important, Dillard found that Black English arranged English words according to a syntax resembling that of West African languages. Black English does not require a distinction between present and past tenses, for example, but it does require a differentiation between continuous and momentary action. Thus, Dillard notes, if a black says of a laborer, "He workin' when de boss come in," he means that the man worked only when the boss was present. On the other hand, if he says...
...Dillard and his frequent collaborator, William A. Stewart, president of the Education Study Center in Washington, the implications of Black English are obvious: ghetto children often have learning difficulties that are basically language problems...
Some schools have already begun teaching black children the rules of Standard English as though it were a foreign language, but Dillard and Stewart would go even further. They argue that such children should first be taught to read Black English, so that what they see on the printed page would correspond to the way they talk. Stewart's organization, in fact, has produced three experimental reading books-Ollie (see box, below), Friends and Old Tales-in parallel Black English and Standard English versions. In theory, once the child masters the principle of reading, Dillard writes, "transition...
...DAHL A. DILLARD...