ABSTRACT
Many of the most contentious debates in the areas of psycholinguistics and educational psychology during the past twenty years have revolved around the issue of how ‘language proficiency’ is related to academic achievement. Disagreement about appropriate ways of conceptualizing the nature of language proficiency underlies controversies as diverse as the extent to which ‘oral language’ is related to the acquisition of reading (e.g. Wells 1981), the extent to which learning disabilities are in reality language disabilities (e.g. Vellutino 1979), and the extent to which the poor school achievement of low socio-economic status (SES) and minority group students is caused by differences in the language use patterns of these students in comparison with middle-class students (e.g. Labov 1970).
