Race and Words: A Note on the Sociolinguistic Divisiveness of Race in American Society.

The convergence and polarization hypothesis is tested using the standard English vocabulary score in the General Social Survey. Blacks scored significantly lower than whites, and this finding is consistent over the test period, and holds within similar educational, financial status and social class groupings. The hypothesis is not supported with General Social Survey data. Conditions maintaining nonstandard language usage apply to blacks in America, and sociolinguistic measures could be used to supplement the assessment of divisiveness of race in survey data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]