bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Sound change and social structure in a rural community
Authors: Frazer Timothy C.
Published: December 2008

Most studies of sound change in the United States have focused on the social strata of urban societies. In the American cornbelt, however, the most important social distinctions are horizontal rather than vertical. A fundamental ethnic division dating back to original settlement of the area opposes town and countryside dwellers. A study of fifty-one speakers in a rural area of Illinois shows fronting and raising of (aw) to be considerably more advanced among countryside dwellers than among town residents. Furthermore, the countryside population underwent a profound social and economic change during the past half century as large numbers of subsistence farmers abandoned the land and rural life altogether, leaving behind a smaller number of farmers whose larger operations meant that the economic and social status of the average farmer considerably improved. An examination of town and countryside age groups from the data base shows that an increase in the fronting and raising of (aw) took place primarily in a single generation most affected by the change in the farm population. At least temporarily, fronted and raised (aw), despite an overt nonstandard status documented in more than a century of speech and language textbooks, suddenly acquired a new prestige – spreading even to town populations – along with a reassertion of rural values and rural life. (Sound change, social structure, rural society, American English, sociolinguistics, dialectology)
The boundary between play and nonplay in black verbal dueling
Authors: Kochman Thomas
Published: December 2008

William Labov formulated rules for sounding (black verbal dueling) that saw ritual insults, but not personal insults, as properly falling within the framework of black verbal play. Other researchers interested in contrasting play and fact-oriented dispute genres within more general discussions of keying have used Labov's analysis as a basis for drawing conclusions as to where play ends and the serious begins within this activity. However, Labov's decision to place personal insults outside the framework of the game of sounding is incorrect. Consequently, so too is the boundary line established by these other researchers to distinguish play from nonplay within the context of black verbal dueling. The present paper proposes to establish the correct black cultural perspective on the role and function of personal insults in sounding and the boundary between play and nonplay within the context of that activity. It also considers the different cultural consequences that would stem from regarding personal insults to be part of verbal play or not. Finally, it shows similarities in the structure and function of two speech actions – accusations and denials – that are used in both play and nonplay disputes to demonstrate more closely the nature of reciprocal influence of play and nonplay interactions. (Black verbal dueling, keying, discourse analysis, play and nonplay dispute genres, interethnic communication)
Language style as audience design
Authors: Bell Allan
Published: December 2008

The style dimension of language variation has not been adequately explained in sociolinguistic theory. Stylistic or intraspeaker variation derives from and mirrors interspeaker variation. Style is essentially speakers' response to their audience. In audience design, speakers accommodate primarily to their addressee. Third persons – auditors and overhearers – affect style to a lesser but regular degree. Audience design also accounts for bilingual or bidialectal code choices. Nonaudience factors like topic and setting derive their effect by association with addressee types. These style shifts are mainly responsive – caused by a situational change. Speakers can also use style as initiative, to redefine the existing situation. Initiative style is primarily referee design: divergence from the addressee and towards an absent reference group. Referee design is especially prevalent in mass communication. (Sociolinguistic variation, code-switching. bilingualism, accommodation theory, ethnography of communication, mass communication)
Yurok speech registers and ontology
Authors: Buckley Thomas
Published: December 2008

Aspects of the precontact ontology of the Yurok Indians of northwestern California may be explored through analysis of lexical and semantic shifts that occur between two speech registers in Yurok: “ordinary” speech and an auxiliary. “high,” or esoteric, speech style. In the “high” register, use of which was the prerogative of a social and spiritual elite, a variety of mechanisms are implemented in altering “ordinary” lexation and in attributing different meanings to parts of the “ordinary” lexicon. These include circumlocution, antonymy, attribution, and, most significantly, the shifting of referential focus. Semantic shifts are systematic within specifiable lexical sets and implicitly comprise subtle ontological exegeses. (Ritual languages, speech registers, translation, world view, Native North America)
How children start arguments
Authors: Maynard Douglas W.
Published: December 2008

Previous research on children's arguments has neglected their initial phases, particularly how they arise out of children's ongoing practical activities. This paper examines how any utterance or activity can be opposed, the concept of opposition being at the center of any definition of argument. However, once opposition has occurred, it can be treated in a variety of ways, and a full-blown argument or dispute is only one possible and contingent outcome. Children analyze others's moves not only verbally, but nonverbally as well. Thus, bodily actions and presupposition are necessary components in the analysis of how arguments are started. Nonverbal oppositional moves may be at the base of semantically constructed disputes. When opposition occurs, it is to be taken to imply the violation of some rule or value. The meaning of that rule or value relative to children's culture is taken to have to do not with its content, but its usage in promoting a local social organization. (Conversational analysis, child language, social organization, presupposition, dispute genres, American English [middle class, Caucasian])
Marking the interaction order: The social consitution of turn exchange and speaking turns
Authors: Denny Rita
Published: December 2008

This paper is about turn exchanges, the structure of speaking turns and the relationship of nonverbal behavior to both exchanges and turns. Its purpose is to present a conceptual framework for analyzing and interpreting turn exchange and speaking turns, and data are cited when possible. First discussed are specific forms of exchange such as “smooth” and “simultaneous.” The Praguean concept of functional differentiation is invoked to argue that forms of turn exchange have indexical value. The relationship of nonverbal behavior to turn exchange is then discussed. An analysis of videotaped, dyadic interactions between strangers, “getting acquainted” conversation, is reported in order to demonstrate that the nonoverlapping exchange has structurally, hence indexically. distinct forms. These forms, defined by both verbal and nonverbal elements, are ordered in a hierarchy of pragmatic markedness. It is concluded that differentiating pragmatic markedness in conversational patterns is a powerful device for determining indexical features of conversation and thus of relevance for a semiotic understanding of everyday speech.
Directive use in a migrant agricultural community: A test of Ervin-Tripp's hypotheses
Authors: Weigel M. Margaret , Weigel Ronald M.
Published: December 2008

The choice of English directive variants has been hypothesized by ErvinTripp (1976, 1977) to be determined by several social and ecological factors: the relative social ranks of the speaker and recipient, their ages, their familiarity, the presence or absence of outsiders, territorial location, and task expectations. The major goal of this investigation is to test ErvinTripp's hypotheses concerning the relationship between these variables and the choice of the identified syntactically based directive variants (imperatives, imbedded imperatives, need statements), using a distinctly different sample: a predominantly black male migratory agricultural labor population in the United States's eastern seaboard region. The data indicate that the imperative form is used almost exclusively in those contexts where the syntactically based directive variants were expected to occur. Thus, most of the predictions derived from Ervin-Tripp's model for these directive variants were contradicted. The preference for imperatives is suggested to be largely a consequence of the antagonistic relationships within the migrant farm-worker community. The results of this study also suggest that the set of decision rules used in choosing among directive variants according to social criteria is a function of the following factors: crosscultural (i.e., social class and ethnic) variation, and social and physical characteristics of the interaction setting. (Directives, migrant farmworkers, cultural differences, environmental influences, ethology)
The functions of rhetorical structure: A study of Central Alaskan Yupik Eskimo discourse
Authors: Woodbury Anthony C.
Published: December 2008

Discourse structure in Central Alaskan Yupik Eskimo (CAY) narrative and conversation is examined, and a general notion ofrhetorical structureis proposed, growing out of recent work in the poetics of Native American oral literature. Rhetorical structure in a given language would consist of prosodically and intonationally signaled phonological phrasing along with whatever other significant formal features consistently pattern or interact with it (minimally surface syntactic constituency, typically also the system of sentence adverbs and conjunctions, further intonational features, and patterns of parallelism and repetition). Findings for CAY as well as other works in the literature indicate at least four important communicative functions for rhetorical structure in addition to its role in verbal art: organization of information, expression of affective meaning, indexing of genre, and regulation of dialogic interaction. (Discourse, syntax–phonology–discourse interaction, ethnopoetics; Native America, Alaska, Yupik Eskimo)
Social correlates of a linguistic variable:A study in a Spanish village
Authors: Holmquist Jonathan C.
Published: December 2008

In this study, linguistic and anthropological research methods are employed in investigating the use of one salient feature in the speech of a small community in northern Spain. Though set in rural Spain, the study is of interest both to readers with special interest in Spain and to those concerned mostly with broader possibilities of inference from linguistic data. In the first case, findings provide insight into social change experienced by generations of villagers marked by the Spanish Civil War and the Franco regime. In the second, data provide evidence that, in this small and relatively homogeneous community, sex and political orientation are factors that influence the use of an established sociolinguistic variable. Speech data used in the study were obtained in a series of recorded interviews conducted by the author. Material of an ethnographic nature was collected during field research over a period of approximately two years. (Linguistic variation, social motivation, Spanish dialectology, Spanish regionalism, Cantabria, montañés)
Introducing Edward Sapir
Authors: Sapir J. David
Published: December 2008

An Introduction to the Edward Sapir centenary session at the November 1984 meetings of the American Anthropological Association, Denver, Colorado, with remarks read at the 1984 Linguistic Society of America meetings (Baltimore, Maryland) on the occasion of the Sapir lecutre given by Professor Emmon Bach, University of Massachusetts (28 December 1984).
The concept of “diglossia” in Caribbean creole situations
Authors: Winford Donald
Published: December 2008

Ferguson's concept of diglossia is examined with a view to dedetermining its applicability to creole continua. The characteristics of classic instances of diglossia are subdivided into sociocultural and linguistic features, and these in turn are used as a basis for determining the extent to which different types of community might be fruitfully described as diglossic. The conclusion is drawn that creole continua share far more in common with Ferguson's defining cases of diglossia than they do not, and far more than other types of speech community. (Diglossia, Creole continua, Typology of speech communities)
Brogez: Ritual and strategy in Israeli children's conflicts
Authors: Katriel Tamar
Published: December 2008

This study relates to two strands of research into children's communicative competence: the study of children's conflict behavior and the study of ritualized communicative activities through which children construct, maintain, and strategically negotiate their social world (e.g., Brenneis & Lein 19p; Lein & Brenneis 1978; Boggs 1978; Corsaro 1979; Morgan, O'Neill, & Harre 1979; Goodwin, 1980). A number of ethnographic studies have been specifically concerned with the analysis of culturally situated, ritualized, agonistic events. Notably, the series of studies concerned with the language form known as “sounding” or “playing the dozens” among black American youth in the United States (e.g., Abrahams 1962; Kochman 1972, 1981; Labov 1972; Mitchell-Kernan 1972), the study of verbal dueling among Turkish boys (Dundes, Leach, & Ozkok 1972), or the study of ritualized fighting among the Irish men of Tory Island (Fox 1977).
Functions of you know in women's and men's speech
Authors: Holmes Janet
Published: December 2008

You know, like the tag question and the parenthetical I think, has been regarded as a linguistic hedging device, and consequently as a “women's language” form. This paper describes a range of forms and functions expressed by you know, as well as its use by women and men in a corpus of spontaneous speech. While there is no difference in this corpus in the total number of occurrences of you know produced by women and men, there are interesting contrasts in the most frequent functions expressed by you know in female and male usage. Finally, the possibility that negative stereotypes may distort perceptions of women's usage is briefly discussed. (Sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, contextual styles, women's and men's speech)
An intonational change in progress in Australian English
Authors: Guy Gregory , Horvath Barbara , Vonwiller Julia , Daisley Elaine , Rogers Inge
Published: December 2008

Many speakers of current Australian English often use a high-rising intonation in statements. This usage, which has been termed Australian Questioning Intonation (AQI), has a nonpropositional, interactive meaning (checking for listener comprehension) and interacts with the turn-taking mechanism of conversation. A quantitative study of the use of AQI in Sydney reveals that it has the social distribution characteristic of a language change in progress: higher rates of usage among working-class speakers, teenagers, and women. Real time data confirm this, showing that the form was almost nonexistent in this speech community two decades earlier. The social motivations of this innovation are examined in terms of local identity and the entry of new ethnic groups into the community, and possible linguistic sources are discussed. The utility of quantitative methods in studying meaningful linguistic variables is demonstrated. (Australian English, language change in progress, intonation, sociolinguistic variation, social class, social motivation)
Some structures of negotiation talk
Authors: Francis David W.
Published: December 2008

The paper applies the methods of conversational analysis to investigation of the social organisation of industrial negotiation. The activities of negotiators are viewed as “locally managed,” and the paper shows how constituent entities of the negotiation setting, such as “issues” and “parties,” are interactionally accomplished in and through talk. Two dimensions of negotiation talk are focussed upon: the organisation of topicality and the production of “team” talk. It is shown that the methods by which negotiators manage the tasks of talking topically and talking as a team are context-specific modifications of the methods by which “ordinary conversation” is accomplished. (Conversational analysis, organizational settings, British English)
Representations of questioning and answering in children's first school books
Authors: Baker Carolyn D. , Freebody Peter
Published: December 2008

Children's first school books contain a considerable amount of reported talk among characters in the stories. This is a central aspect of the characterization of these books as transitional from the conventions of oral language to the conventions of written prose, that is, as introductions to literacy. The nature of the written representation of conversation in such books has not previously been examined. This paper presents a partial analysis of this feature of beginning school readers, focussing on “question-answer sequences.” We show how these representations of talk compare with naturalistic research on child-adult interaction at home and in classrooms, and we propose that the model of child-adult talk portrayed in “home” and “school” scenes in the books appears to endorse some of the conventions for participation in instructional talk, and in this respect is implicitly a source of socialization into classroom culture. At the same time, we find that the texts give child speakers far more initiative in conversation than typically obtains in classroom talk, and this is seen also to be a feature of the social constitution of the child in these texts. Thus an image of childhood which combines conversational initiative and conversational competence as a member of the classroom community is conveyed. The paper also points out possible difficulties for child readers in interpreting the talk-on-paper, arising both from textual formats and from the particular version of the child as conversationalist which the books describe (Child-adult conversation, question-answer sequences, first school books, literacy acquisition).
Argument as status assertion: Contextual variations in children's disputes
Authors: Emihovich Catherine
Published: December 2008

Previous analyses of children's disputes have concentrated on the use of various strategies within discrete activity contexts. Using data from an ethnographic study of an integrated kindergarten, it is suggested that children's disputes are strongly influenced by the activity and role structure of a given event, and that variations in how an event is contextualized are linked to the social structure of the classroom. Analytical problems in studying disputes from this perspective are also discussed. They include determining the speaker's focus, coping with multiple contexts, and selecting the level of analysis. (Developmental sociolinguistics, children's social behavior, peer interaction, analytic problems, American English)
The use of the simple present in the speech of two three-year-olds: Normativity not subjectivity
Authors: Gerhardt Julie (Gee) , Savasir Iskender
Published: December 2008

In our research, we wish to illuminate different types of discursive intentions which are structured into discourse via the verb inflections and auxiliaries, together with their entailed social effects. In the present report, we examine the use of the simple present by two three-year-olds, and argue that analyses in terms of tense or aspect are not adequate to account for its use. One needs to recognize the way in which the form implicitly refers to norms and thereby entails a type of impersonal motivation – especially as it is just this feature of the use of this form that structures the ongoing activity into a nondialogic, normative activity. (Simple present, normativity, subjectivity, activity-types, nondialogic discourse, the constitutive role of language, American English)
Functions of in-house language: Observations on data collected from some British financial institutions
Authors: Taylor M. Ean
Published: December 2008

The nonuse of available slang terms for cash among British bank and building society cashiers is noted and an explanation sought in the field of social control. The possible relevance of the Whorfian hypothesis is explored, and it is suggested that the in-house terms discussed have social and psychological functions in addition to the representational. (Financial terminology, social control, language functions, Whorfian hypothesis).
Modern Spanish once-removed in Philippine Creole Spanish: The case of Zamboangueño
Authors: Lipski John M.
Published: December 2008

Philippine Creole Spanish, formed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, underwent partial decreolization toward the end of the Spanish presence in the Philippines, particularly in the city of Zamboanga. Following the American occupation of the Philippines, virtually all Spanish linguistic influence has disappeared, but contemporary Zamboangueño continues to exhibit continuing incorporation of elements of standard Spanish, in the nearly total absence of a pool of Spanish speakers. The present study explores the status of the Zamboangueño dialect, discusses the various stages of decreolization in the direction of Spanish, and suggests possible avenues for the continued introduction of elements from an acrolect which, for all intents and purposes, is no longer generally available to residents of Zamboanga. (Creole studies, contact vernaculars)
Bilingual education success, but policy failure
Authors: Hornberger Nancy H.
Published: December 2008

In 1977, a bilingual education project began in rural areas of Puno, Peru, as a direct result of Peru's 1972 Education Reform. This paper presents results of an ethnographic and sociolinguistic study comparing Quechua language use and maintenance between: 1) a bilingual education school and community, and 2) a nonbilingual education school and community. Classroom observation indicated a significant change in teacher–pupil language use and an improvement in pupil participation in the bilingual education school. Community observation and interviews indicated that community members both valued and used their language. Yet the project has had difficulties expanding or even maintaining its implementation. (Quechua; Puno, Peru; Peru; Andes; bilingual education; classroom language use; ethnography; sociolinguistics; community development; language planning; language maintenance; educational policy)
Dialects and the teaching of a standard language: Some West German work
Authors: Barbour Stephen
Published: December 2008

In applied sociolinguistics in West Germany the notion has been influential that the indigenous working class is separated from the middle class by a linguistic barrier and thus is at a linguistic disadvantage, as well as suffering other forms of disadvantage. The paper places this view in its context within German work on language and society, examines it critically, and outlines why, in the author's view, it is of questionable validity. (Sociolinguistics, dialectology, education, German)
Kinship and collective activity in the Ngayarda languages of Australia
Authors: Dench Alan
Published: December 2008

This paper describes the functions of a verbal derivational suffix found in the Ngayarda languages Panyjima, Martuthunira, Yinyjiparnti, and Kurrama. This suffix, which appears at first blush to be an essentially syntactic device very like the reciprocal suffix found in other Australian languages, may be used to indicate the existence of a particular kin relationship between participants involved in the action described by a verb. The paper presents firstly the more general functions of the suffix in the Ngayarda languages and then discusses the use of the suffix to mark kin relationships. It is argued that the general “collective activity” meaning of the suffix has generalised to the marking of certain kin relationships through the recognition that collective activity is a feature of these particular relationships. The successful analysis of the data thus relies on a knowledge of the social uses to which utterances involving the suffix are put. (Anthropological linguistics, sociolinguistics, syntactic theory, cultural anthropology, Australian linguistics)
Cross-dialectal variation in Arabic: Competing prestigious forms
Authors: Abd-El-Jawad Hassan R.
Published: December 2008

Most researchers of Arabic sociolinguistics assume the existence of a sociolinguistic continuum with a local vernacular at the bottom and the standard variety at the top. Those researchers seem to equate the terms “prestige” and “standard”; consequently, they tend to consider Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) as the only prestige variety in all settings. This article presents evidence showing that if an adequate description of sociolinguistic variation of spoken Arabic is to be met, it is necessary to posit not only one standard speech variety, MSA, but also other prestigious local or regional varieties which act as local spoken standards competing with MSA in informal settings. It will be shown in the reported cases that in certain contexts speakers tend to switch from their local forms – though these latter may be identical to MSA – to other local features characteristic of other dominant social groups and that happen to be marked [–MSA], These local prestigious norms act like the standard spoken norms in informal settings. (Diglossic model, prestigious varieties, stereotypes, dominant social groups, competing standards, spoken Arabic).
Standard and regional standard speech: Distinctions and similarities
Authors: Edwards John , Jacobsen Maryanne
Published: December 2008

In a study of evaluations of speech in a Canadian context, it was found that a variety which may be said to possess regional standard status was perceived most favourably on dimensions relating to competence, success, and status when compared to other forms, and as favourably as these other forms in terms of integrity and attractiveness. This is in distinction to typical findings involving a more straightforward dichotomy between standard and nonstandard speech, where the former is usually associated with high status and competence, but tends to be seen less favourably than nonstandard forms on the so-called solidarity dimensions of integrity and attractiveness. An attempt is made to explain these results, to integrate them with the existing literature, and to suggest new studies. (Standard speech, regional varieties, speech evaluation)
Communication in a multilingual society: Some missed opportunities
Authors: Singh Rajendra , Lele Jayant , Martohardjono Gita
Published: December 2008

This article critically examines contemporary interactional studies of the cultural specifity of human language, conducted mostly in modern, multiethnic, industrialized societies (e.g., Clyne 1979; Gumperz 1982a, 1982b; Valdés & Pino 1981). What is often presented as the “linguistic evidence” for miscommunication in such contexts is in fact, we argue, the locus of the violations of the cooperative principles of discourse and human interaction, such as the Principle of Charity (Davidson 1974) and the Principle of Humanity (Grandy 1973). The conclusions these studies arrive at are vitiated by the fact, for which considerable empirical evidence exists, that the native speaker's repairability threshold depends crucially on nonlinguistic variables (Hackman 1977). Only a cross-cultural analysis of how or whether these misconstruals entail analogous consequences, regardless of who is being misunderstood by whom, can, we argue, produce the sort of evidence these studies claim to unearth.
Language shift and narrative performance: On the structure and function of Arvanítika narratives
Authors: Tsitsipis Lukas D.
Published: December 2008

Literature on language death offers abundant information on the grammatical, phonological, lexical, and sociolinguistic processes that a dying speech form can undergo. However, work remains to be done in the area of narrative skills and performance. This article examines the creative manipulation of certain narrative devices, including bilingual lexical resources from modern Greek and Tosk Albanian in stories offered by a residual group of fluent Albanian speakers in Greece. In a community, which is highly variable from the point of view of the allocation of its Arvanítika (Albanian) linguistic and sociolinguistic skills to various population segments, fluent speakers manage to achieve a significant performance breakthrough by foregrounding and evaluating information important for their attitude building and vital to their social existence. Narrative performances become ways of relating historical events and past experiences in present-day life. The article makes the point that in studies of language death a more intensive use of the ethnography of speaking paradigm can be of great value for the detection of sensitive areas of speech behavior and change. (Narrative performance, language death, ethnography of speaking, Balkan sociolinguistics, Tosk Albanian, Greek)
The concept of preference in conversation analysis
Authors: Bilmes Jack
Published: December 2008

Preferenceis treated as a single concept in conversation analysis, but it has in fact developed into an assemblage of loosely related concepts. It has also been construed in a variety of mutually incompatible, and sometimes meth-odologically questionable, ways. This is due, at least in part, to a confusion betweenpreferencein its everyday usage andpreferenceas a technical notion. This paper attempts to present a clear and unitary concept of preference and investigate the properties of that concept, differentiate related concepts (including conversational implicature), and reveal common confusions. (Conversation analysis, preference, methodology, implicature)
The context of oral and written language: A framework for mode and medium switching
Authors: Murray Denise E.
Published: December 2008

This article demonstrates that our descriptions of orality and literacy – from the traditional dichotomy to the more recent continuum – are inadequate, largely because they are grounded in the Western positivist tradition and use as their typical texts casual conversation and academic writing. The introduction of a new medium of communication, the computer, into the workplace clearly demonstrates that medium of communication is itself a linguistic choice, depending on the context of situation. The article presents a case study identifying those aspects of the context of situation that affect both choice of mode/medium and mode/medium-switching. The article then proposes a framework that expands on previous work that has sought to describe the dimensions involved in the choice of language (e.g., Halliday 1973; Hymes 1972; Jakobson 1960). This framework suggests an integrated approach for examining oral and written language, an approach grounded in the view that literacy and orality are social practices whose forms and functions vary for different social groups. (Literacy, dimensions of sociolinguistics, discourse)
Spanish language use and attitudes: A study of two New York City communities
Authors: García Ofelia , Evangelista Isabel , Martínez Mabel , Disla Carmen , Paulino Bonifacio
Published: December 2008

This article presents the results of a comparative study of two Hispanic communities in New York City: Washington Heights and Elmhurst/Corona. Our data on language proficiency, language use, and attitudes were gathered using a sociolinguistic questionnaire. However, the study benefited from the interactive process established between the researchers and the communities which they studied and in which they live and work.

Our data are analyzed along three dimensions. First, we compare data for the two Spanish-speaking communities. We discuss how the social status and the ethnic configuration of the community affect linguistic and attitudinal behaviors. Then, we analyze the data according to national origin. We discuss how the five nationality groups included in our study – Central Americans, Cubans, Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, and South Americans – differ in language proficiency, language use, and language attitudes. Finally, we compare the data for Dominicans in Washington Heights to that of Dominicans in Elmhurst/Corona. We examine how national origin and the language surround of the ethnic community interact in order to determine language use and attitudes. Some of the findings here differ from what may be supposed of such cases.

We suggest socioeducational and language policies for Hispanics in the United States based on the results of this study. (Sociology of language, sociolinguistics, language planning, ethnic studies, sociology, education of language minorities, language education, Central American, Cuban, Dominican, Puerto Rican, South American Spanish in New York City)
How Black EnglishPastgot to the present: Evidence from Samaná
Authors: Tagliamonte Sali , Poplack Shana
Published: December 2008

This article examines the tense system of Samaná English, a lineal descendant of early nineteenth-century American Black English. Independent evidence from quantitative phonological, grammatical, and narrative analyses reveals the existence of a past tense marker comparable in surface form, function, and distribution to that of Standard English. In addition, we establish the presence of a narrative Historical Present, thus far unattested in Black English Vernacular (BEV), which appears in proportions and patterns of alternation with the past tense nearly identical to those associated with middle-class white American narrators. Comparison with varieties of contemporary BEV and English-based creoles shows a structural resemblance between Samaná English and the former, but not the latter. These findings have important implications for understanding the development of contemporary BEV. (Linguistic variation, narrative analysis, Black English Vernacular, pidgin and creole linguistics, Dominican Republic)
Women and politeness: The Javanese example
Authors: Smith-Hefner Nancy J.
Published: December 2008

This article explores the relationship between the status of Javanese women and the politeness or formality of their speech. I examine the hypothesis that, cross-culturally, women will speak more politely than men as an expression of their secondary status. Ethnographic research from East Java reveals that Javanese women are required to be more polite within the family where they receive less polite speech and offer more. In the wider context of Javanese culture, however, it is Javanese men who strive to cultivate politeness for the purpose of expressing their superior status and authority. The potentially coercive or political power of politeness in Javanese is related to the ambiguity of the polite codes themselves, which may be used to express both deference or humility on the one hand and status, refinement, and power on the other. Speech patterns are linked to a number of social-structural variables: patterns of socialization, models of appropriate male and female linguistic behavior, and men's and women's social roles and typical spheres of interest. Where, as in Java, polite codes are associated with public power and control, we should expect that men may be especially concerned with the cultivation of polite styles of speech. (Politeness, gender roles, linguistic socialization, Indonesia)
“It's cookin' now”: A performance analysis of the speech events of a Black teacher in an urban community college
Authors: Foster Michèle
Published: December 2008

Ethnographic research conducted in the classroom of a Black woman teacher in an urban community college reveals the presence of two distinct but culturally appropriate ways of speaking. Drawing on performance theory, this article analyzes two speech events through which the teacher establishes and maintains congruent face-to-face interaction. It compares the speech events and discusses their effect on student participation and the interpretations and meanings that the participants attach to each. (Performance, ways of speaking, speech events, ethnography of communication)
Politeness theory and Shakespeare's four major tragedies
Authors: Brown Roger , Gilman Albert
Published: December 2008

Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson (1987) have proposed that power (P), distance (D), and the ranked extremity (R) of a face-threatening act are the universal determinants of politeness levels in dyadic discourse. This claim is tested here for Shakespeare's use of Early Modern English inHamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, and Othello. The tragedies are used because: (1) dramatic texts provide the best information on colloquial speech of the period; (2) the psychological soliloquies in the tragedies provide the access to inner life that is necessary for a proper test of politeness theory; and (3) the tragedies represent the full range of society in a period of high relevance to politeness theory. The four plays are systematically searched for pairs of minimally contrasting dyads where the dimensions of contrast are power (P), distance (D), and intrinsic extremity (R). Whenever such a pair is found, there are two speeches to be scored for politeness and a prediction from theory as to which should be more polite. The results for P and for R are those predicted by theory, but the results for D are not. The two components of D, interactive closeness and affect, are not closely associated in the plays. Affect strongly influences politeness (increased liking increases politeness and decreased liking decreases politeness); interactive closeness has little or no effect on politeness. The uses of politeness for the delineation of character in the tragedies are illustrated. (Politeness theory, speech act theory, pragmatics, sociolinguistics, theory of literature, Shakespeare studies)
Social network integration and language change in progress in a rural alpine village
Authors: Lippi-Green Rosina L.
Published: December 2008

The quantification of communication network integration can provide information valuable to the study of language change in very small rural communities. The adaptation of urban and communication network methodology for rural alpine social structures establishes a framework for the study of variation leading to change based on individual usage for the dialect of Grossdorf in Vorarlberg, Austria's western-most province. This approach is particularly relevant when study of aggregate group behavior has failed to yield results due to small sample size or group internal inconsistency. (Field methods, language networks, variation and change)
Pseudoquotation in current English communication: “Hey, she didn't really say it”
Authors: Dubois Betty Lou
Published: December 2008

To investigate discourse and interactive functions ofquote formula+hey+pseudoquotation, that is, invented quotation, in current English communication, tokens were collected from public and commercial broadcasts and miscellaneous readings during a four-month period. In addition, all instances ofheywith context were extracted from the Brown Corpus of American English. Only 26 possible tokens, the majority from radio and television, were located; one instance inBrownindicates existence as early as 1961. A speaker uses quote formula +hey+ pseudoquotation to dramatize and thereby give emphasis to an important point (in these examples, generally in an expository discourse), a practice reported for both sophisticated and folk discourse. Instead of a rhetorical question, the device makes arhetorical answerto an unasked question. Although pseudoquotation can be found either without discourse marker or with other discourse marker,heyis an appropriate marker for pseudoquotation, simultaneously to mark an important point in a discourse and to bind listeners to the ongoing interaction by (re)capturing their attention. (Discourse markers, conversational interaction, pragmatics, dramatization,hey, quotation)
Are Iraqi women more prestige conscious than men? Sex differentiation in Baghdadi Arabic
Authors: Abu-Haidar Farida
Published: December 2008

Investigators have found in Arabic-speaking communities that men's speech, and not women's, approximated the standard variety. More recent studies have challenged the assumption that prestige and standard spoken Arabic are one and the same. These studies have found that there are, in some Arab communities, prestige varieties of spoken Arabic which are not in the direction of standard Arabic, and that, contrary to what had been previously concluded, it is mostly women who speak the prestige dialects. This article, based on an investigation of the speech of a group of Baghdadi men and women, shows that in Baghdad the prestige variety of spoken Arabic is in the direction of the standard, and that women, more than men, tend to favor this variety. Using the findings of a previous research project in Baghdad, the article also draws attention to the fact that in the past, when Baghdadi women did not have the same access to standard Arabic as men, it was men, and not women, who spoke a dialect approximating the standard variety. (Standard literary Arabic, dialectal Arabic, linguistic prestige norms, style shifting)
Penguins don't care, but women do: A social identity analysis of a Whorfian problem
Authors: Khosroshahi Fatemeh
Published: December 2008

The Sapir–Whorf hypothesis is often implicitly assumed to be true independent of its empirical status. Feminist attempts to eliminate the generic he must assume that language somehow affects thought, since there is no intrinsic harm in the word itself. Research to date has, in fact, shown that generic he tends to suggest a male referent in the mind of the reader. This study asks whether people's interpretation of a generic sentence varies depending on whether or not they have followed feminist proposals and reformed their own language. Fifty-five college students read sex-indefinite paragraphs involving either the generic he, he or she, or they, and made drawings to represent the mental images evoked by what they read. The sex of the figure drawn was the dependent variable. Students' term papers were used to determine whether their own language was “reformed” or “traditional.” He was found to be least likely to evoke female referents, he or she most likely, and they in between. However, regardless of the pronoun, men drew more male and fewer female pictures than women. Moreover, whereas men did not differ in their imagery, whether their language was reformed or traditional, women did. Traditional-language women had more male images than female. Reformed-language women showed the opposite. Results are discussed in terms of the theory of social identity (Tajfel 1981), and it is concluded that the weak, correlational form of Whorf's thesis applies to women, the group that initiated the reform in the first place. (Gender and language, pronouns, social psychology of language, Sapir–Whorf hypothesis)
On the telephone again! Differences in telephone behaviour: England versus Greece
Authors: Sifianou Maria
Published: December 2008

This article investigates differences in telephone behaviour in England and Greece in the light of Brown and Levinson's model of interaction. It focusses upon differences both in verbal telephone call behaviour and in the attitudes and values attached to telephone usage. Explanations are placed within a broad framework of cultural differences in the preferred interactional strategies of the two societies. (Sociolinguistics, culturally determined variations in telephone behaviour, politeness phenomena, Greece versus England)
Antitotalitarian language in Poland: Some mechanisms of linguistic self-defense
Authors: Wierzbicka Anna
Published: December 2008

This article explores the concept of political diglossia, a phenomenon arising in totalitarian or semitotalitarian countries, where the language of official propaganda gives rise to its opposite: the unofficial, underground language of antipropaganda. The author studies one semantic domain – the colloquial designations of the political police and security forces in contemporary Poland – and compares them with the official designations. The semantics of the relevant words and expressions is studied in great detail so that the social attitudes encoded in them can be revealed and rigorously compared. To achieve this, the author relies on the natural semantic metalanguage that she has developed over the last two decades, which has already been applied in the study of many other semantic domains, in many different languages. The social and political attitudes encoded in the Polish expressions referring to the security apparatus are discussed against the background of Poland's history. The author shows that language is not only the best “mirror of mind” (Leibniz) and “mirror of culture” and “guide to social reality” (Sapir), but also a mirror of history and politics. (Sociolinguistics, pragmatics, semantics, language of propaganda, expressive language)
Apologies in New Zealand English
Authors: Holmes Janet
Published: December 2008

The function of apologies is discussed within the context of a model of interaction with two intersecting dimensions – affective and referential meaning. Apologies are defined as primarily social acts conveying affective meaning. The syntactic, semantic, and sociolinguistic features of apologies are described, based on a corpus of 183 apologies. While apology exchanges divided equally between those which used a combination of strategies and those where a single strategy sufficed, almost all apology exchanges involved an explicit apology. An account is provided of the kinds of social relationships and the range of offenses which elicited apologies in this New Zealand corpus.

Apologies are politeness strategies, and an attempt is made to relate the relative “weightiness” of the offense (assessed using the factors identified as significant in Brown and Levinson's model of politeness) to features of the apology strategies used to remedy it. Though some support is provided for Brown and Levinson's model, it is suggested that Wolf-son's “bulge” theory more adequately accounts for a number of patterns in the data. In particular, the functions of apologies between friends may be more complex than a simple linear model suggests. (Apologies, politeness, speech functions, New Zealand English, sociolinguistics, pragmatics)
Sex-based differences in compliment behavior
Authors: Herbert Robert K.
Published: December 2008

Sex-based differences in the form of English compliments and in the frequencies of various compliment response types are discussed. Based on a corpus of 1,062 compliment events, several differences in the form of compliments used by women and men are noted. Further, it is found that compliments from men are generally accepted, especially by female recipients, whereas compliments from women are met with a response type other than acceptance. These findings are set within a broader discussion of male–female differences in speech and the sociology of compliment work. Parallels are drawn between these sex-based differences and differences in norms for national varieties of English relating to the function and frequency of compliments as speech acts and to different response types elicited by diverse functional exploitations of compliment formulas in discourse. (Sex-based differences in language use, socioprag-matics, compliments/compliment responses, ethnography of speaking)