bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Synchronic variability and diachronic change in basic color terms
Authors: Kay Paul 
Published: December 2008

AbstractThe main purpose of this paper is to relate recent findings regarding the evolution of basic color term systems to current research in linguistic variation and language change. More specifically it is to provide in the area of lexical semantics a demonstration of the hypothesis that all linguistic change has its roots in synchronic heterogeneity of the speech community (cf. Weinreich, Labov & Herzog (1968: 188) for a general statement of this position, also many empirical demonstrations already reported, such as those by Labov (1972) and Wang (1969) in phonology and by Bickerton (1973) in syntax). Before taking up this topic, I summarize some recent revisions in the basic color term theory itself. (Ethnographic semantics, color terms, language variation, evolutionary universals in linguistic change.)
The question of tag questions in women's speech: they don't really use more of them, do they?↓
Authors: Dubois Betty Lou , Crouch Isabel 
Published: December 2008

AbstractThe authors investigate Robin Lakoff's dual claim that women use tag questions in more conversational situations than do men and that such questions signify an avoidance of commitment, causing the speaker ‘to give the impression of not being really sure of himself, of looking to the addressee for confirmation, even of having no views of his own’. They find that in an at least one genuine social context, men did, and women did not, use tag questions, both formal and informal, so the claim is open to serious doubt. (Sex differences in speech; sociolinguistic method.)
The universality of conversational postulates
Authors: Keenan Elinor Ochs 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTGrice's analysis of conversational maxims and implicatures is examined in the light of Malagasy language and ways of speaking. A cultural contrast in primary assumptions is described. Grician analysis retains usefulness but within the perspective of a comparative typology in which locally valid systems may differ strikingly in what is marked and unmarked. An ethnographic base and ethnological comparison are required. The situation somewhat resembles the situation with regard to grammatical categories addressed by Boas (1911) and Sapir (1921). (Conversational postulates, ways of speaking; English (US), Malagasy (Madagascar)). (DH)
Some sources of cultural variability in the regulation of talk
Authors: Philips Susan Urmston 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTRecent efforts to analyze the structure of talk have focused primarily on the conversation of persons from a white middle-class background. This paper compares the way in which talk is regulated, both verbally and non-verbally, in Anglo interaction with the regulation of talk among Indians of the Warm Springs Reservation, in central Oregon. The purpose of this comparison is to begin to assess the sources and nature of cultural variability in this one aspect of language use. (Ethnography of communication, conversational analysis, nonverbal communication, North American Indians.)
The acquisition of routines in child language
Authors: Gleason Jean Berko , Weintraub Sandra 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTThe acquisition of routines is one aspect of language development. Routines such asBye-bye, in contrast to more referential language, appear to be among the earliest acquisitions and are congruent with the sensori-motor child's capacities. This study investigates performance of the highly constrained Hallowe'enTrick or treatroutine in 115 children from 2 to 16 years of age. Changes in competence and the role of parental input are examined in relation to cognitive and social factors. (First routines; the Hallowe'en interaction; children's production; adult participation; adult metalanguage; implications for ethnographic research.)
A rate of change index for language
Authors: Johnson Lawrence 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTAlthough the rates of changes in language are customarily described in relative terms, this paper presents a method of quantifying the rate of a given change during a specific time period. Utilizing the results of recent studies of sound change in progress, the Rate of Change Index is applied to the data for the purpose of indicating precisely the speed of these changes. Also measured in this manner are the rates of change of a variable in different phonetic contexts and among different social classes. The comparisons made here lend support to two important theories: that linguistic change follows an S-curve and that change proceeds more rapidly in urban than in rural areas. The Index contributes, then, to an inductive model of sociolinguistic change. It is also suggested that the Index can be applied to syntactic and lexical changes as well. (Linguistic change, Sociolinguistics, Phonology.)
Black southern signing,,
Authors: Woodward James C. 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTRecent research in American Sign Language (ASL) has concentrated on demonstrating that ASL, a language channelled through the manual—visual modality, has linguistic properties similar to those of oral languages, except for physical sound. The absence of sound, however, really presents no theoretical problem since ASL has a formational level of structure analogous to, but not dependent on, the phonological component of oral languages (Stokoe 1960; Battison 1974).This paper will discuss a relatively new area of research in Sign linguistics, ethnic—social variation. Because of attitudes and educational policy, Black signers in the South have developed different varieties of signing from Whites. Concentrating primarily on Black signs in Georgia, this paper will discuss some of the lexical and formational (phonological) variation observed in old and young Black signers. (Sociolinguistic variation; sign languages; linguistic change; minority group languages.)
The clarification request as a feature of adult interactive styles with young children
Authors: Corsaro William A. 
Published: December 2008

AbstractThe analysis of videotaped naturally occurring adult—child interaction led to the isolation of the clarification request as a consistent feature of adult interactive styles. The analysis of the form and function of adult clarification requests demonstrated the importance of the interactive demands adults encounter when interacting with young children. The nature of these interactive demands and how adults deal with them are discussed in regard to Cicourel's (1970) notion of interpretive procedures. Finally, a discussion of the possible effects of adult interactive style on the child's development of communicative competence is presented. (Developmental sociolinguistics, conversational analysis, adult—child interaction, US English.)
Variable data and linguistic convergence: Texts and contexts in Chipewyan
Authors: Scollon Ronald 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTIn the contemporary speech community of Fort Chipewyan, Alberta, there is evidence that the four languages, Chipewyan, Cree, French, and English, have converged to a considerable extent. Although at first this convergence appears to have developed since Fang-Kuei Li's 1928 work on Chipewyan in the same community, an examination of other sources which have been considered unreliable shows this convergence to have been stable for as long as 100 years. The view of Chipewyan as a discrete, historical variety, unaffected by convergence, is then shown to have been a joint product of the interaction between the linguist, Li, and his informant, François Mandeville. (Linguistic convergence, linguistic change, fieldwork, ethnography of speaking, history of linguistics; Chipewyan (Athapaskan) of Fort Chipewyan, Alberta, Canada.)
Omniscience and ignorance: Variation in Nuaulu knowledge, identification and classification of animals
Authors: Ellen Roy F. 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTThe ethnographic analysis of categories is still largely based on assumptions of cultural uniformity, although, during the past decade, the significance of variation has become increasingly evident as attempts have been made to measure it. Delineation and measurement are themselves complex tasks, however. In a single body of data there may be variation according to many criteria which are often cross-cutting and reinforce each other irregularly. These issues are discussed in this paper in relation to different types and contexts of variation evident in animal classifications of the Nuaulu of eastern Indonesia. Yet, the kinds of assumptions made in formal studies of individual variation are as problematic as those concerning cultural uniformity. It is important to appreciate that the techniques and representations employed to describe classifications and their variation are often inadequate, concealing those things that are operationally of most significance and reifying ‘classifications’ which do not always exist in practice. The products of classifying behaviour inevitably reflect the immediate social conditions of the situations in which they are used. (Analysis of categories, cultural variability, ethnozoology, social context; Nuaulu of eastern Indonesia.)
Quechua's loss, Spanish's gain
Authors: Lefebvre Claire 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this paper is to illustrate an aspect of the adaptive property of languages. While scholars have shown that expansion in function is correlated with expansion of the linguistic structure, I show that a loss of function by a language may entail a loss of a particular linguistic distinction. The data used to illustrate this point are drawn from the bilingual community of Cuzco, Peru. (Language contact, the adaptive property of languages, linguistic variation, linguistic change.)
Style-shifting in a Cardiff work-setting
Authors: Coupland Nikolas 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTDespite ample evidence which proves the existence of stylistic stratification in the speech of monoliguals, little is know about the nature of stylistic variation in everyday settings. Data from a Cardiff travel agency suggest that a speaker's stylistic repertoire can be statistically characterised using a method that combines Labov's frequency-counts of linguistic variants and Hymes' and others' taxonomies of situational components. A second study using subjects' responses to stylistic variation in the original data overcomes certain limitations inherent in the correlational method. It shows how style-shifting can be a dynamic resource for a speaker, not necessarily the automatic correlate of contextual features. (Stylistic variation; sociolinguistic variables in Cardiff English; linguistic repertoire; reactions to style.)
Variation in discourse—“and stuff like that”
Authors: Dines Elizabeth R. 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTThe extension of variation analysis to the level of discourse involves refining the notion that variants are semantic equivalents. Discourse variables may be determined on the basis of common discourse function. In the absence of a semantic tie the isloation of a variable begins with the salience of a variant and proceeds via examinations of its distribution to postulating a variable and mapping the alternative variants. This procedure is illustracted by an analysis of a socially diagnostic discourse feature– the set-marking tag. Its higher frequency in working- class sppeech stimulates the search for alternative favoured forms. One hypothesis, derived from Bernstein's notion of codes, is that the tags mark an orientation to “particularistic” rather than “ universalistic” meanings. It follows that a favoured alternative to the tag may be realised as general reference. (Discourse variables; variation theory; codes and social dialects; Australian English.)
Linguistic lag as an ethnic marker
Authors: Dorian Nancy C. 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTLanguage has long been recognized as an important marker of ethnic identity. The identification is usually made in terms of some specific language or dialect, the use of which coincides more or less well with the boundaries of some particular ethnic group. This relationship obtains perfectly in present-day East Sutherland (Scotland), where the East Sutherland Gaelic mother tongue is almost the sole marker of fisherfolk ethnic identity. It can be shown, however, that this is only a very recent development and that the long-standing linguistic component of fisherfolk ethnicity is rather a lag in linguistic behavior vis-à-vis the rest of the population. The lag has taken four different forms over the past century or so, but the presence of such a lag is itself the actual ethnic marker. (Language and ethnicity, linguistic norms, language maintenance and shift; Scotland, Scottish Gaelic.)
Hi, thanks, and goodbye: More routine information
Authors: Greif Esther Blank , Gleason Jean Berko 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTThis study examines children's acquisition of three politeness routines: hi, thanks, and goodbye. Twenty-two children, eleven boys and eleven girls, and their parents participated. At the end of a parent-child play session, an assistant entered the playroom with a gift to elicit routines from the children. Spontaneous production of the three routines was low, with thank you the most infrequent. Parents actively prompted their children to produce routines, however, and children usually complied. Further, parents themselves used the routines, with more mothers than fathers saying thank you and goodbye to the assistant. Results were discussed in relation to the role of parents in linguistic socialization and to the importance of routines in social interaction. (Routines; politeness formulas; linguistic socialization; parental teaching; mother-father differences; sex role socialization)
The validity of literary dialect: Evidence from the theatrical portrayal of Hiberno-English forms
Authors: Sullivan James P. 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTWhether or not literary dialect constitutes a reliable source of linguistic evidence is a question to which linguists have generally been content to respond in a negative fashion. Literary portrayals, they hold, are too much a work of the creative imagination to merit serious linguistic consideration. An interpretive analysis of one class of Hiberno-English representations, however, shows that since their inception, the theatrical portrayals of the variety have, by and large, reflected numerous aspects of the dialect quite accurately. In addition, the evidence attests a historical transition from lexico-phonological to syntactic representation: a shift which suggests that at different stages of transitional bilingualism, an emergent variety may be characterized by different forms of mother-tongue interference. Given the general absence of longitudinal studies, literary portrayals, once accepted as linguistic data, may open the way to the at least partial reconstruction of the linguistic contours involved in the language crystallization process. (Non-standard varieties; English dialects; language crystallization; variation in literary dialect; transitional bilingualism; Hiberno-English, Irish, Ireland.)
The relative clause marker in Scots English: Diffusion, complexity, and style as dimensions of syntactic change
Authors: Romaine Suzanne 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTA historical study of variation in the relative clause marker in Scottish English indicates that sociolinguistic methodology has some important contributions to make to historical linguistics. The use of the frequency with which NPs in certain syntactic positions are relativized as a measure of syntactic complexity reveals that the WH relativization strategy appears to have entered the language in the most complex styles and least frequently relativized syntactic positions, until it eventually spread or diffused throughout the system. The addition of the WH relativization strategy seems to have resulted in a ‘squish’ of two strategies which are opposed in stylistic meaning rather than in actual qualitative change in the relative system. The process of diffusion can be seen as completed as far as the more formal styles of the modern written language are concerned, but it has not really affected the spoken language, where the native TH strategy prevails. (Sociolinguistic methodology, historical linguistics, language change, relativization, history of tle English language)
Telephone goodbyes
Authors: Clark Herbert H. , French J. Wade 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTIn urban American telephone conversations, we propose, the final exchange of goodbyes doesn't terminate the conversation per se but brings to completion a process of leave-taking in which the two parties reaffirm their acquaintance before breaking contact. This process is optional, so that if the two parties are not acquainted, they should omit the process and not exchange goodbyes. We tested this proposal by examining goodbyes offered to operators in routine inquiries to a university switchboard. In requests for a single number, callers offered goodbye only 39 percent of the time. This percentage increased, however, (1) when callers asked for more personally revealing information, (2) when callers felt more appreciation for the information they received, as indicated by their use of thank you very much instead of thank you, and (3) when operators revealed more about themselves by making and then correcting their own mistakes. These and other findings suggest that the more closely acquainted the caller and operator feel they have become, the more likely the caller is to want to reaffirm acquaintance and say goodbye.
The intimacy of address: friendship markers in children's social play
Authors: Emihovich Catherine A. 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTIn this paper, a preschool children's game is analyzed with reference to patterns of address used by intimates in beginning utterances. The findings reveal that the alternation between real and pretend names functions to mark context shifts in the nature of the activities, and to delineate role relationships among the participants along the dimensions of power and affiliation. It is suggested that variations in how children address one another provide insight into their understanding of a system of social relations. (Peer interaction; developmental sociolinguistics; social behavior, children's address patterns; American English).
The effect of a narrative context on the verbal style of middle-class and lower-class children
Authors: Jewson Jan , Sachs Jacqueline , Rohner Ronald P. 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTThe verbal style of middle-class and lower-class ten-year-old children was assessed in a descriptive communication task using three different types of stimulus items: standard visual, tactual, and items embedded in a narrative. In a partial replication of Heider's (1971) work it was found that lower-class children used a global descriptive style to communicate information about standard visual (abstract) stimuli, whereas middle-class children used an analytic style. Group differences also were observed with tactually input stimuli, although the lower-class responses shifted toward an analytic style. However, both middle-class and lower-class children used an analytic style to describe stimulus items when they were embedded in a narrative context. In addition, order effects were observed, suggesting that lower-class children use an analytic style with standard visual stimuli if they perceive this style as situationally appropriate. Social class differences in verbal style are not only a function of type of stimulus item, but are also a function of strategies applied in the communicative situation.
Variation in the use of ain't in an urban British English dialect
Authors: Cheshire Jenny 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTAin't occurs as a sociolinguistic variable in working class speech in the town of Reading, England. The phonetic realizations of ain't in Reading English do not accord with traditional etymologies, depending more on the syntactic environment in which ain't occurs than on the standard English forms from which they are usually assumed to derive. The phonetic variants are also marked for semantic function in tag questions. Variation in the use of ain't can be explained as reflecting an ongoing linguistic change (sociolinguistics, dialectology, language change, theoretical linguistics).
Who's got the floor?
Authors: Edelsky Carole 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTThis study into the nature of “the floor” actually began as an open-ended inquiry into sex differences that might occur beyond the sentence level in the multi-party interaction of five informal committee meetings. Technical difficulties prompted the trying out of several different transcription displays, most of which failed to capture the “feel” of the interaction and each of which biased (in its own way) the perception of what had actually gone on. The type of unconventional display eventually used was intended to show the floor holder in the center of the page, flanked by co-occurring talk. Because there were many episodes for which a single floor holder could not be identified, the primary focus of the study shifted to the nature of the floor itself. Questions about sex differences became a secondary and succeeding focus.In the analysis, “floor” and “turn” were distinguished on the basis of “participant-sense” rather than technical criteria. Two kinds of floors were subjectively identified: F1, a singly developed floor; and F2, a collaborative venture where several people seemed to be either operating on the same wavelength or engaging in a free-for-all. The two kinds of floors were differentiated objectively by such features as quantity and frequency participation, language functions, number of nonturn utterances, overlaps, and pauses. There were indeed sex/language differences, but these were related to the type of floor being developed. Men took more and longer turns and did more of the joking, arguing, directing, and soliciting of responses F1 's. Turn length and frequency differences were neutralized in F2's, and certain language functions were used by women to a greater extent in F2's than in F1 's. (Conversational analysis, gender and language, qualitative research methodology.)
Whorfianism of the third kind: Ethnolinguistic diversity as a worldwide societal asset (The Whorfian Hypothesis: Varieties of validation, confirmation, and disconfirmation II)
Authors: Fishman Joshua A. 
Published: December 2008

AbstractTwo hypotheses associated with Benjamin Lee Whorf, W1, or the linguistic relativity hypothesis, and W2, or the linguistic determinism hypothesis, have overshadowed a third, W3, that champions ethnolinguistic diversity for the benefit of pan–human creativity, problem solving and mutual cross-cultural acceptance. With respect to W3, Whorf is a disciple of Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) with whom he shares many themes and basic perspectives. It may be that different basic methodologies and philosophies of science, particularly those that distinguish linear, quantitative experimentalism from the reborn holistic and ethnographic stress on meaning, will ultimately make it just as difficult to conclude what has been empirically demonstrated with respect to W3 as it already is with respect to W1 and, particularly, W2. Nevertheless, W:3 has a valuable humanizing and sensitizing effect on the language-related disciplines. Indeed, in that respect it may well have value above and beyond its scientific validity. (Whorfian hypothesis, Johann Gottfried Herder, multilingualism/multiculturalism, methodology–theory relationships in the language sciences.)