Page 17 - Difference or Disorder Digital Version

Difference or Disorder?

transfer the structure of their first language to English. For example, adjectives in English are

placed in front of nouns (the blue chair), whereas adjectives in Spanish follow nouns (la silla

azul). Thus, an expected error from an English language learner whose native language is

Spanish might be, “the chair blue.” This book also explores other areas of language structure,

such as sentence structure, plurals, past tense, future tense, possessive forms, and much

more. The contrastive analyses included in this text focus primarily on differences in the area

of form because these differences typically drive the cross‐linguistic errors that are

encountered in the assessment process.

CULTURAL DIFFERENCES

Culture also plays an important role in understanding language differences versus

disorders, especially with respect to pragmatic language skills. Significant variation exists both

between and within different cultural groups (Lynch & Hanson, 2004). Exploration of specific

cultural patterns can often be misconstrued as stereotyping. In light of this, this text takes a

general approach to the discussion of cultural variation by highlighting areas in which cultures

may vary rather than emphasizing specific differences between cultures. Chapter 2 provides

considerations of different cultural parameters and the possible implications of cultural

variation in the educational setting. Further, the Home Corner sections of each chapter are

designed to share personal accounts of people from different language backgrounds. These

personal accounts serve to increase understanding of the experience of being bilingual and

reduce potential bias in understanding the needs and communication patterns of culturally
and linguistically diverse learners.

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