Walt Wolfram, Carolyn Temple Adger, & Donna Christian, Dialects in schools and communities. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1999. Pp. xi, 239. Hb $49.95, pb $24.95.

Abstract

This book is something we've needed for a long time. It lays out what everyone – the public as well as professionals in all fields – should understand about dialects and dialect differences in our increasingly diverse encounters. It is written with technical sophistication, wise judgment, and a clear style, with rich examples that make it accessible to students and clinicians (and maybe even marketable as a trade book). LiS readers may learn little new to them, but they can assign this book with confidence to any class, and they can read it profitably as a model of how to talk about this controversial topic to non-linguists. Given this kind of book – non-controversial to linguists themselves – it seems most useful for a review to indicate the scope of the eight chapters and Appendix.