Language of the English-speaking Coloured child

Abstract

The language deficient - language different controversy in the language of the Coloured child was investigated while at the same time examining Coloured English. The Ss comprised 20 nine-year old English speaking Coloured children, 9 boys and 11 girls. Language samples were obtained through direct questioning according to Halliday's language functions. From these samples, the non-standard language structures used by a significant number of the Ss were isolated, and examined. It was established that the Ss had competence for all these structures except that of relative sentences. Possible reasons for this were postulated. A sub-aim of the study was to compare the ratings of Coloured teachers and a group of speech therapists and university students of non-standard sentences used by the Ss. Based on the findings, several implications for speech therapy were discussed.