Dr. Walt Wolfram

-By Ryan Costanzo

This presentation is intended to provide the Composition and TESOL student with

a basic understanding of Wolfram’s scholarly service. This brief overview of Wolfram covers his formal education,

academic appointments, major contributions, and selected publications.

Formal Education

• 1969 dissertation, Linguistic Correlates of Social Stratification in the Speech of Detroit Negroes, completed at Hartford Seminary Foundation (ProQuest Digital Dissertations)

• Studied linguistics at University of Chicago; At Hartford, earned an MA and PhD in Linguistics with minor in Anthropology for both degrees (Walt Wolfram Vita Page)

• Studied Anthropology as an undergraduate at Wheaton College (Walt Wolfram Vita Page)

Academic Appointments

• Currently William C. Friday Distinguished Professor at North Carolina State University

• Has taught at Georgetown, the University of Pittsburgh, the Center for Applied Linguistics, and the University of the District of Columbia

• Cooperative doctoral program in English Linguistics between NCSU and Duke is a direct result of the efforts of Wolfram and Ron Butters

• NCSU honored Wolfram with an award for research and two awards for his role as a graduate professor

Source: Walt Wolfram Vita Page

Contributions to the Field of Literacy and Linguistics

• Wolfram is “committed to the ideal that researchers should actively seek ways to serve the communities they research” (Walt Wolfram Vita Page, para. 4)

• Social consciousness clearly reflected in research on dialects, education, and speech pathology

• Money obtained through grants is nothing short of incredible• Professional memberships include the American Association of

Applied Linguistics, the American Dialect Society, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, the Linguistic Society of America, the National Council of Teachers of English, and the Southeastern Conference on Linguistics

• Has held numerous positions as consultant, delivers conference papers regularly, and coordinates various media presentations

Source: Walt Wolfram Vita Page

Selected Publications

• The Development of African American English (2002)

• Dialects and Education: Issues and Answers (1989)

• Dialects in Schools and Communities (1999)• Sociolinguistic Aspects of Assimilation:

Puerto Rican English in New York City (1974)

The Development of African American English (2002)

• “Focus[es] on the ethnolinguistic status of [African American Vernacular English] as a significant vernacular variety of American English” (p. xiii)

• Wolfram and Thomas analyze empirical data from a specific linguistic community in North Carolina to understand better “the general development of African American Speech in the past and the present” (p. xiii)

• Calls into question assertions by Labov and Poplack “that the distinctiveness of AAVE is primarily a twentieth-century phenomenon” (p. 10)

• Charts, graphs, and analyses demonstrate expert handling of geographical, phonological, and grammatical data

Dialects and Education: Issues and Answers (1989)

• Wolfram and Christian “present and respond to the kinds of issues raised by actual practitioners in surveys, workshops, and discussion groups” (p. vii)

• Chapters outline the role of dialects in reading, the language arts, and speech pathology

• Concise and accessible

Dialects in Schools and Communities (1999)

• Valuable, comprehensive resource on dialects in educational settings

• Wolfram, Adger, and Christian offer a discussion of dialects, standard English, and reading and writing instruction

• All educators in the field of literacy should familiarize themselves with this work, as it “is intended for use by teacher interns and practicing teachers in elementary and secondary education, early childhood specialists, specialists in reading and writing, speech/language pathologists, special education teachers, and students in various language specialties” (p. x)

Sociolinguistic Aspects of Assimilation: Puerto Rican English in

New York City (1974)• An early, yet sophisticated sociolinguistic research project• A study designed “to expand our descriptive knowledge of

American social dialects by applying recent sociolinguistic methods of analysis” (p.1)

• Supported by Roger W. Shuy• Wolfram argues “that differentiation of dialects cannot be indicated

by simple categorical statements; instead, dialects are, more typically, quantitatively distinguished” (p. 46)

• Describes and analyzes language variables through statistical methods to uncover “the systematic nature of variation” (p. 223) in “the speech of 29 Puerto Rican and 15 black teen-age males from East Harlem and the Bronx” (p. 5)

Conclusion: Walt Wolfram’s Ongoing Commitment to Literacy Research and

Education

• Produces quality sociolinguistic research that meets both theoretical and practical concerns

• Dedication to African American speech communities is renown• Empowers communities of linguistic minorities and the

educators who work with them• Impossible to offer a comprehensive treatment of Wolfram’s

work in a brief presentation; the researcher desiring further information is referred to Wolfram’s online vita at http://www.duke.edu/web/linguistics/facultyvitae-wolfram.htm.

References

Duke Linguistics Faculty. Walt Wolfram vita page. Retrieved November 09, 2003, from http://www.duke.edu/web/linguistics/facultyvitae-wolfram.htm

Proquest Digital Dissertations. Walter Andrew Wolfram’s Linguistic correlates of social stratification in the speech of Detroit Negroes. Retrieved November 09, 2003, from http://wwwlib.umi.com/dissertations/fullcit/7007915

Wolfram, W., & Thomas, E.R. (2002). The development of African American English. Oxford: Blackwell.

Wolfram, W., & Christian, D. (1989). Dialects and education: Issues and answers. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Wolfram, W., Adger, C.T., & Christian, D. (1999). Dialects in schools and communities. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Wolfram, W. (1974). Sociolinguistic aspects of assimilation: Puerto Rican English in New York City. Arlington, VA: Center for Applied Linguistics.