bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Is Sybil there? the structure of some American English directives
Authors: Ervin-Tripp Susan 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTDirectives to hearers can be expressed in a variety of syntactic forms. The social distribution of such forms shows them to occur systematically, according to familiarity, rank, territorial location, difficulty of task, whether or not a duty is normally expected, whether or not non-compliance is likely. Except for some hints and questions not mentioning what is desired, directives do not require inference from a prior literal interpretation to be understood. Indeed, misunderstandings and puns imply that the interpretation of many directives is not likely to include a literal phase. On the contrary, where knowledge of obligations and prohibitions is shared, simple interpretation rules suffice, allowing prompt understanding. To interpret the affective significance of directives, one must compare the expected and realized forms, and recognize the social features that the difference implies. Deference, solidarity, coldness, sarcasm, rudeness, and qualitatively specified compliments or insults can be communicated systematically by such departures. (Pragmatics, directives, requests, politeness, conversational analysis, performatives, US English.)
Pronouns of address in Swedish: social class semantics and a changing system
Authors: Paulston Christina Bratt 
Published: December 2008

One who has lived soon an entire century must learn to change all her habits, and habits of address surely are not the easiest. What comes simply and naturally in one place is wrong and ill-mannered in another (Former servant-girl, informant KU 2849).Even an ordinary simple worker has today became aware of the fact that he also is a human being, and that the great machinery would not function if he did not play his part. An old conservative postmaster's wife said once to my mother, who was the simple wife of a worker: ‘I think things now are not the way they should be; the workers' conditions are so good that they dress so well that nowadays one cannot tell the difference between workers and fine folk.’ This utterance from a woman who believed she belonged to the fine folk my mother never forgot, and I myself have also remembered it (Retired railroad worker, informant KU 2768)
Class differences in syntactic complexity in the Flemish town of Maaseik
Authors: van den Broeck Jef 
Published: December 2008

AbstractThe linguistic foundation of Bernstein's code theory is tested in a bidimensional sociolinguistic investigation. Not only class, but also situation is controlled. In the Flemish town of Maaseik each of eight informants (four middle class and four working class) have been interviewed in two different situations, one formal and one informal. In the formal situation standard Netherlandic was spoken and in the informal the local dialect. Five measures of syntactic complexity constituted the linguistic variable. The results in the formal situation corroborate those of Bernstein: the middle-class subjects exhibit a greater degree of syntactic complexity than the working-class subjects. In the informal situation all subjects exhibit about the same degree of syntactic complexity, and for the middle-class subjects this degree is less than that in the formal situation (as might be expected). The striking result is that the working-class informants exhibit significantlyhighercomplexity in theinformalsituation. In the discussion these findings are compared to those of previous studies, Bernsteinian and other. In an appendix sample data for formal and informal styles from one middle- and one working-class subject are presented. (‘elaborated’ and ‘restricted’ codes, social vs. cognitive meaning, syntactic variation; Flemish cf. Maaseik, Belgium).
‘We're friends, right?’: Children's use of access rituals in a nursery school
Authors: Corsaro William A. 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTIn this paper, children's use of access rituals in peer interaction in a nursery school is examined and a discussion of the implications of the findings regarding the development of communicative competence is presented. The findings show that entry into play is a production of some importance involving considerable time and strategy to accomplish, while leave-taking usually involves unmarked physical movement from play areas. The importance of peer interaction in the acquisition of access rituals and the necessity of studying children's verbal routines in natural settings are discussed. (Developmental sociolinguistics, peer interaction, children's use of access rituals, US English.)
Mixed grammar, purist grammar, and language attitudes in modern Nahuatl
Authors: Hill Jane H. , Hill Kenneth C. 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTIn Tlaxcala and Puebla, Mexico, Nahuatl is being replaced by Spanish. Economic and social factors, principally a shift from a peripheral agrarian integration in the Mexican economy to integration as a rural proletariat involved in migratory labor, has been accompanied by a shift in language attitudes which has led to a narrowing of the range of functions of Nahuatl to a function primarily as a “language of solidarity.” This narrowing of function and the accompanying development of ethnic self-consciousness and egalitarianism are expressed through the stigmatization of Spanish loan words, other ethnic boundary-marking usages, the narrowing of honorific usage, and the differentiation of Nahuatl from Spanish grammar in noun-number constructions. (Nahuatl, Spanish, language shift, ethnicity.)
“Sharing time”: Children's narrative styles and differential access to literacy
Authors: Michaels Sarah 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTA discourse-oriented classroom activity in an ethnically mixed, first grade classroom is studied from an interpretive perspective, integrating ethnographic observation and fine-grained conversational analysis. “Sharing time” is a recurring activity where children are called upon to describe an object or give a narrative account about some past event to the entire class. The teacher, through her questions and comments, tries to help the children structure and focus their discourse. This kind of activity serves to bridge the gap between the child's home-based oral discourse competence and the acquisition of literate discourse features required in written communication.Through a detailed characterization of the children's sharing styles, evidence is provided suggesting that children from different backgrounds come to school with different narrative strategies and prosodic conventions for giving narrative accounts. When the child's discourse style matches the teacher's own literate style and expectations, collaboration is rhythmically synchronized and allows for informal practice and instruction in the development of a literate discourse style. For these children, sharing time can be seen as a kind of oral preparation for literacy. In contrast, when the child's narrative style is at variance with the teacher's expectations, collaboration is often unsuccessful and, over time, may adversely affect school performance and evaluation. Sharing time, then, can either provide or deny access to key literacy-related experiences, depending, ironically, on the degree to which teacher and child start out “sharing” a set of discourse conventions and interpretive strategies. (Urban communication, ethnic/subcultural differences in discourse style, the transition to literacy, American English.)
Contrastive patterns of intragroup and intergroup interaction in the creole continuum of Belize
Authors: Escure Geneviève 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTThe decreolization process observed in the creole continuum of Belize, Central America is examined in relation to the extralinguistic factor of ethnicity. The speech patterns of Creole speakers are analyzed in terms of two distinct types of ethnic contact, namely, intragroup communication vs. interaction with Black Caribs. Decreolization is viewed as a code-switching phenomenon which affects all native speakers of creole without implying a unified progression toward the acrolect (English). Special attention is given to: I) intraindividual variability which is found to span the whole continuum in intragroup contexts, but to be restricted to mesolectal varieties in intergroup situations; and 2) the relative significance of the five morphosyntactic variables selected to measure decreolization. These features follow distinctive overall patterns of co-occurrence. However, the mesolectal bloc, when viewed in detail, discloses an internal complexity which defies scaling of linguistic features, and reveals the influence of conflicting social and psychological pressures. (Creole studies; ethnic interaction; sociolinguistics; code-switching.)
Sports announcer talk: Syntactic aspects of register variation
Authors: Ferguson Charles A. 
Published: December 2008

AbstractThe language of sports casting is analyzed in terms of register variation. First the register is “located” by successive approximations to a characterization of its occasions of use, then selected syntactic characteristics are identified: simplification (deletion of copula and sentence initial nominals), inversions, heavy modifiers, result expressions (for + noun, to + verb), routines (e.g., giving the “count”). Some of these are discussed in relation to possible communicative functions, but all are seen as register markers. Sports announcer talk (SAT) is described as a promising topic for comparative, historical, and acquisitional studies of register variation. (Register, mass media, performance; American English, Japanese.)
Hospital slang for patients: Crocks, gomers, groks, and others
Authors: Gordon David Paul 
Published: December 2008

AbstractAccording to a widespread view, people or experiences that evoke painful feelings of empathy, anxiety, or fear can be dealt with by giving them humorous, derogatory, or evasive names. Such terms allow the release or avoidance of unpleasant emotion. At first glance, hospital slang expressions for patients appear to provide numerous examples of this, but closer inspection suggests very different conclusions. Patient conditions which may be expected to create particular anxiety or distress do not lead to slang labels. Slang terms for patients fall into four categories, three of which characterize types of patients who claim more attention for their conditions than is warranted. The fourth category is made up of positive or neutral descriptive terms.Hospital slang for patients serves social as well as expressive functions. Rapport within a group and rapport between individuals are distinct phenomena. When embedded in contexts that avoid individualized expressions of emotion or experience, hospital slang may promote group rapport at the same time that it maintains individual distance. In this respect is is similar to other kinds of slang, and other discourse devices. (Slang, discourse negotiation and contextualization, medical anthropology, rapport, expressive function of names and labels.)
Code selection and shifting in Guyana
Authors: Edwards Walter F. 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTCreolists have been showing that the use of codes in Creole societies is linguistically motivated, but these scholars have neglected the social principles informing the use of language varieties in these societies. This paper takes the position that the use of Creole and English varieties in Guyana is socially motivated. The typical Guyanese speaker uses linguistic items which are socially appropriate or mandated in the social context or cultural milieu he finds himself in, and uses items from both English and Creole. The speaker's use of linguistic forms seems to be related more to his conscious or subconscious social intentions than to linguistic principles which inhere in the basilect to acrolect continuum model with which many creolists work. The linguistic behavior of nine groups of individuals from three communities in Guyana is examined within a theoretical framework proposed by R. B. LePage (1972, 1973, 1977). This framework allows us to see these groups, and individuals within them, as exploiting the codal resources of their society to their social advantage. (Sociolinguistics, Creole linguistics, language contact)
Patterns of encounter management: Further arguments for discourse variables
Authors: Coupland Nikolas 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTStudies of linguistic variation in communities ought to be able to capture variable patterns of discourse. But there are problems in quantitatively studying variable realisations of functional units, because it is impossible to list variants exhaustively. A more abstract approach to discourse variation can examine the distribution of variants which are themselves functional units, tied to higher-order functions. This form of analysis is exemplified in a travel agency setting, where education groups are differentiated by the levels of explicitness with which they manage their encounters: in the identifying of purposes and roles and in the marking of closing transactions and other transaction boundaries. (Discourse variation, discourse analysis, communicative explicitness, travel agency talk)
Social changes and changing address norms in China
Authors: Fang Hanquan , Heng J. H. 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTThe paper is concerned with the changing address norms in China since the founding of the People's Republic in 1949. The first part of the paper deals with the termtóngzhì‘comrade’ as well as some other address terms relevant to it. Emphasis is on the discussion of why official titles rather thantóngzhìare preferred by certain Chinese officials. The second part focuses on how traditional address terms such asxiānsheng‘Mr.’,tàitai‘Mrs.’ andxiaojie‘Miss’ have undergone changes; and the third part refers to the use of the second singular pronouns of both the regular formníand the honorificním. The paper also reports on the changes in some other aspects including address terms to women and some proper names relevant to address. (Address, language change, Chinese linguistics, anthropological linguistics, politics of language)
Naming fish: A problem exploration
Authors: Jernudd Björn H. , Thuan Elizabeth 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTThere is a lack of perception of the interrelatedness of the three fish-naming systems: the scientific, the common, and the folk naming systems. Ichthyologists and regulators of fish names do not sufficiently appreciate the motivations and intricacies of folk naming systems or problems of professional and commercial use of names. At the common name level, there seems to be little exchange of information concerning problems and solutions, objectives, and procedures. Also, communities and networks that use the same language(s) seek different solutions to the same or equivalent naming problems. The authors list some common problems and offer a tentative classification. (Taxonomy, naming, language planning, fisheries)
Una nación acorralada: Southern Peruvian Quechua language planning and politics in historical perspective
Authors: Mannheim Bruce 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTThis paper sketches Spanish colonial policies toward Southern Peruvian Quechua in order to identify long-term trends and constants. I emphasize the following conjunctures in the debate on the status of the indigenous languages: (1) the simultaneous efforts to restrict the inroads of bilingualism in the legal and political domain and to encourage bilingualism among local headmen so as to facilitate indirect rule in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries; (2) the debate as to the role of the vernacular in religious education and missionary work in the same period, a debate in which the position favoring use of the vernacular held out for a time against calls for forced liquidation of the indigenous languages; (3) the ascendancy of the position calling for liquidation in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries; and (4) the role of Southern Peruvian Quechua as a nationalist emblem during the eighteenth century.These conjunctures have considerable relevance today. Differences in vocabulary and ideological justification have obscured the continuity between colonial and modern language policy. The issues debated, the limits of the alternatives proposed as solutions, and even the practical efforts carried out on behalf of alternative policies, have been surprisingly perdurable. For four and a half centuries the “Andean language debate,” the issues and terms of language policy, have continued to have at their center the question of whether or not the Quechua have a right to exist as a separate community. (Language policy, colonialism, South America, Quechua)
Jewish argument as sociability
Authors: Schiffrin Deborah 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTTalk that is argumentative in form can have sociable functions for members of some groups. In sociable argument, speakers repeatedly disagree, remain nonaligned with each other, and compete for interactional goods. Yet they do so in a nonserious way, and in ways which actually display their solidarity and protect their intimacy. The analysis raises questions about the adequacy of many current views about conversational cooperation, showing that the levels at which cooperation (and competition) exist are not always overt. The analysis also demonstrates the cultural relativity of norms of evaluation about dispute. (Conflict, conversation, cooperation, culture, evaluation, frames, key, pragmatics, rhetoric)
Linguistic insecurity in Winnipeg: Validation of a Canadian index of linguistic insecurity
Authors: Owens Thomposon W. , Baker Paul M. 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTThe study reported here reports data on the validity of a Canadian version of Labov's “index of linguistic insecurity.” Data were gathered from a random sample of two census tracts in Winnipeg, Canada. Both Labov's original test and a new Canadian equivalent test were given to the sample of eighty adults. Scores on the two tests were highly correlated, indicating high criterion validity of the Canadian test. Also, social class and gender differences followed the same pattern as in Labov's study, with the lower middle class and females showing higher levels of linguistic insecurity. The use of the New York City test in Winnipeg is discussed, and some details concerning Canadian English are presented. (Language attitudes, linguistic insecurity, Canadian English, social class)
On decreolization and language death in Gullah
Authors: Jones-Jackson Patricia 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTThe sociolinguistic pressures now exerted on the Gullah-speaking communities match the general conditions that DeCamp (1971b) described for postcreole speech communities or communities in which the traditional language variety is decreolizing or dying. There is a correspondence between the dominant official language and the creole, and there is sufficient breakdown in the formerly rigid social stratification brought on by educational programs and other acculturative forces to cause social mobility and to motivate large numbers of Gullah speakers to modify their speech in the direction of standard English. Preliminary research of the processes involved in this modification activity reveals that certain features of the pronominal system are elaborating and dying while certain other features of this system are remaining static and unchanged. Elaboration is well underway in the nominative case, for example, while in the objective case elaboration has barely begun. (Sociolinguistic pressures, postcreole, decreolizing or dying, social mobility, certain features, elaborating, static)
Toward a model of members' methods for recognizing interruptions
Authors: Murray Stephen O. 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTSimultaneous speech is neither necessary nor sufficient for the recognition of “interruption” by interlocutors. A peaker's “completion right” is vitiated by how long she has been speaking, how often she has spoken, the number of “points” made in a speaking turn, and the special rights of some speakers to speak about some topics. There are no absolute syntactical or acoustical criteria for recognizing an occurrence of “interruption” available either to those involved in a speech event nor to analysts. (Turn taking, California English conversation)
Some functions and uses of literacy in the deaf community
Authors: Maxwell Madeline 
Published: December 2008

AbstractDifferences in patterns of literacy can be understood in terms of communicative needs as governed by culturally learned notions about the appropriateness of a given communicative mode for a given social activity and by practicality as determined by biological structures and processes. It is through literacy that the deaf person can share in the linguistic experiences of the society at large, since written language is not distorted by the handicapped auditory sense. This study provides the first analysis of the ways writing is used among the deaf and between deaf and hearing communicators. Four groups were consulted and observed: the social community of deaf adults who sign, families in which parents are hearing and at least one child is deaf, families in which parents are deaf and children are hearing or deaf, deaf and hearing schoolteachers. Families with hearing parents use virtually no writing, whereas families with deaf parents and deaf adults in general use writing for several functions. The reading abilities of deaf school leavers seldom exceed fourth grade level; nevertheless, deaf adults use writing daily for exchange of information in the home, in public, on the job, and for communication by means of a telephone adaptation with a keyboard. The uses of literacy are largely conversational, personal, and instrumental. Commercial print in the form of captioned television and movies is also available. Deaf children born to deaf parents are socialized into these uses. Deaf children born to hearing parents are not. Writing which occurs in classrooms with deaf children is largely limited to lesson work, even when teachers are deaf. Literacy programs should take into account the communicative needs of deaf adults and the patterns of literacy use in deaf families. (Literacy, deafness, crosscultural analysis, ethnography of communication)
The interactional accomplishment of discrimination in South Africa
Authors: Chick J. Keith 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTIn this paper I attempt to show what a micro approach involving fine-grained sociolinguistic analyses has to contribute to the understanding of the causes of discrimination on grounds of race in South Africa. I present analyses of intra- and intercultural encounters involving native speakers of English and Zulu which suggest that differences in sociocultural background and discourse conventions contribute to misinterpretation of intent and misjudgement of attitude and ability. Repeated stressful encounters of this kind, I suggest, generate negative cultural stereotypes. Finally, I sketch how the larger, structural, historically given forces, which are the concern of macro studies, combine with the results of intercultural encounters to achieve a negative cycle of socially created discrimination. (Interactional sociolinguistics, culture-specific discourse conventions. intercultural communication failure and prejudice, South African English)