ABSTRACT
The emotional heat generated by the discussion of the relationship of Vernacular English to spoken English in the reading process has been spectacular, if not enlightening. What was originally postulated as a reasonable hypothesis for serious analysis quickly became a political football, which prevented the very investigation it suggested. The idea was simple enough. Learning theory indicates that people tend to learn what they do know on the basis of what they do not know. That is, we learn new things by building on the common ground of existing knowledge.
