Dialect interference in the writing of primary school children in the commonwealth of Dominica

Abstract

This paper reports on a small-scale, exploratory study into the impact of Creole dialect forms on the writing of 9–11-year-old pupils in the Commonwealth of Dominica. The grammatical features of these non-standard dialects and the frequency with which they occur in the pupils' writing (N = 55) are itemised and compared with similar studies carried out in England and St. Lucia. The investigation found that the use of non-standard dialect in writing was a comparatively rare phenomenon compared with other grammatical and orthographic features, and supported the findings of earlier studies. Pedagogic implications arising from the findings are considered together with some tentative pointers for future research.