bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The nationalization of Swahili in Kenya
Authors: Harries Lyndon 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTThe decree of 4 July, 1974, by President Kenyatta, proclaiming Swahili as the national language of Kenya is discussed with reference to questions of feasibility and expediency. The alternatives to the President's decree are considered, and reasons for the decision are suggested.Comparison of the status of Swahili in the capital cities of Kenya (Nairobi) and Tanzania (Dar es Salaam) is made to illustrate the special difficulties confronting the Kenya government in making the President's decree effective. The parliamentary response is crucial, but the dominance of English in Nairobi, the capital city, where Swahili has not always been much valued, indicates a wider gap between intention and the possibility of fulfilment than in Dar es Salaam.The need for proficiency in Swahili is viewed in the Kenya situation, and this is related to what is linguistically appropriate. The nationalization of Swahili results in secularization of a language that found its normal expression in the setting of Islam. What is linguistically appropriate in Swahili on the national level is often inappropriate to members of the Swahili coastal community. Kenyans are likely to opt for their own modifications of Standard Swahili, basing this on the Mombasa dialect, but up-country Swahili is the foundation upon which greater proficiency can be achieved. (Language planning, language policy, regional and social stratification of varieties, Swahili; Kenya, Tanzania.)
Speech events and natural speech: some implications for sociolinguistic methodology
Authors: Wolfson Nessa 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTSamples of speech suitable for sociolinguistic analysis may be sought in several ways. Interviews (either formal or informal), and tape-recorded group sessions, are the methods most used currently. In research on a specific variable, the historical present tense (HP), none of these methods proved neutral or adequate. Although the historical present tense is very widely used in conversational narratives, its occurrence within interviews is so infrequent as to be striking. An explanation was found in the way in which the interview has a specific known place as a speech event in the culture of those whose speech was being studied. The so-called spontaneous interview does not have such a place, and for that very reason is even less satisfactory a source of data. The notion of natural speech is taken as properly equivalent to that of appropriate speech; as not equivalent to unselfconscious speech; and as observable easily, and often best, by simple techniques of participation. (Sociolinguistic methodology; speech events, interviews, observation, natural speech; United States English).
On questions following questions in service encounters
Authors: Merritt Marilyn 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTThis paper is a treatment of some patterns of talk that occur in service encounters (and presumably in other conversations as well). It is an attempt to examine the contribution of discourse structures such as the question–answer adjacency pair to the coherence of everyday discourse. The customer-request–server-response sequence is examined as to its adherence to a pattern of question–answer. Though some sequences do adhere to the question–answer pattern, there are many that do not, but rather are manifested as question–question. The question–question patterns are shown to be of several kinds in terms of the relationship of the second question to the first. The analysis demonstrates the relationship of these patterns to the pragmatic interpretation of the customer-request as either a request for information or as a request for service, and leads to a tentative set of generalizations concerning the interpretation of responses to questions in general. (Questions, conversational analysis, discourse analysis, pragmatics, indirect speech acts, coherence, ritual, service encounters, American English.)
Same setting, different norms: Phone call beginnings in France and the United States
Authors: Godard Daniele 
Published: December 2008

AbstractFrench native speakers' reactions to phone calls in the United States are an indication of a difference in the norms of interaction between the two countries. This difference, in turn, is understood when one realizes that the phone call, constituting a speech event, is open to different cultural interpretations, in spite of a similarity in the physical conditions of the interaction between the caller and the answerer. (Sequencing conventional opening; cultural variability; telephone calls; France and United States.)
Social Linguistics in the Ussr
Authors: Krysin L. P. 
Published: December 2008

AbstractThe present review surveys the current state of sociolinguistic studies in the USSR, though due reference is made to papers on the sociology of language published as early as the 1920s.The following trends of Soviet sociolinguistics are distinguished and discussed: (1) general theory and methodology; (2) socially motivated changes in modern Russian during the post-Revolutionary period; (3) development and mutual impact of different languages spoken in the USSR; (4) standard language as opposed to dialects; (5) non-standard language subsystems (group and professional slang, popular, non-prestige and colloquial speech, etc.); (6) language standardization and codification; (7) a study of pronouncing, morphological, and lexical variants; (8) problerns of language policy; (9) sociolinguistic aspect of functional stylistics; (10) sociolinguistic aspect of inter-personal communication; (11) mass interviewing of speakers and methods of the interview.The review is supplied with a bibliography index.
On the logic of variable rules
Authors: Kay Paul , McDaniel Chad K. 
Published: December 2008

In the introduction we stated two frequently encountered a priori arguments against the variable rule methodology and attempted to refute them. The first rejects the variable rule methodology – and by implication any study of comparable data – on the grounds that variable rules govern token frequencies while generative grammar does not countenance token frequencies. We agree that variable rules are not generative rules of a new sort but an entirely different kind of logical object and that generative grammar indeed does not countenance token frequencies. But we are convinced by empirical work conducted within the variable rule paradigm that token frequencies often display clear patterns and that moreover some knowledge of these patterns forms part of the linguistic abilities of speakers. We conclude that, whatever the drawbacks of the variable rule formalism, studies employing variable rules have shown regularities in linguistic behavior that point to a serious lack in the generative paradigm, narrowly defined.A second line of argument against variable rules which we rejected was based on assumptions about human psychology and about probability theory. The assumption that human beings cannot assess probabilities and behave in accord with them in a natural and unconscious manner appears to be supported by no empirical evidence and does not seem to us plausible a priori. Moreover, experimental evidence to the contrary exists. The argument to probability theory was that a speaker would have to have an internal counting device to keep track of the relative frequencies of linguistic variants that he had heard from his own or other lips in order to behave in accordance with variable rules. But this would require a kind of probability theory that would differ in remarkable and unspecified ways from ordinary probability theory, since the paradigmatic empirical examples of the familiar theory, such as coins, dice, decks of cards, and so on, are not possessed of memories.
On interpreting ‘The Indian Interpreter’
Authors: Thomason Sarah Grey 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTThis paper addresses the proposition that certain multilingual situations favor certain learning strategies on the part of speakers. The paper takes this proposition as the best approach to explaining the development of pidgin grammars, and exemplifies the general approach by studying the seventeenth-century Delaware-based Traders’ Jargon in its linguistic and social context. The task of the paper, then, is to see if the evidence provided by the Jargon's grammatical structures fits the theory's predictions, and if the evidence for the multilingual situation in which it arose fits as well. The conclusion is that both types of evidence fit well if we assume that the Jargon arose before the period of European settlement, and that this assumption is indeed justified. (Pidgin and creole studies; languages in contact; early European/Indian; North American Indian languages)
Interactive features in Yucatec Mayan narratives
Authors: Burns Allan F. 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTThis paper examines how Yucatec Mayan people conceive of conversations. Special attention is given to the role of narrator, respondent, and audience in those speech arts which utilize conversational genres. The conversational genres of ordinary talk, storytelling, and myth-telling in Yucatec Mayan are all dialogues. One field-recorded narrative is analyzed in detail in order to illustrate the distribution and scope of narrator and respondent speech. (Ethnography of speaking, Middle American native language use, discourse analysis, mythology and folklore performance.)
On the goals, principles, and procedures for prescriptive grammar: Singular they
Authors: Mackay Donald G. 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTThis paper examines the goals of prescriptive grammar and the causes and consequences of the rift between prescriptive and theoretical linguistics. It also proposes a principle for guiding prescriptive recommendations in the future as well as a theoretical framework and procedure for predicting the consequences of prescriptive recommendations. The procedure illustrates a hypothetical prescription: the substitution of singular they for prescriptive he. Projected benefits the prescription include neutral connotation, naturalness, simplicity, and lexical availability. Projected costs include covert and overt referential ambiguity; partial ambiguity; conceptual inaccuracy; loss of precision, imageability, impact, and memorability; bizarreness involving certain referents and case forms; distancing and dehumanizing connotations; unavailability of the ‘he or she’ denotation; potentially disruptive and long-lasting side effects on other areas of the language. Procedures are also illustrated for determining the relative frequency of such costs and benefits and for estimating the relative disruptiveness of the costs normal language use. Implications of the data for several issues general interest to linguistics and psychology are explored. (Ambiguity, language change, prescriptive grammar, theoretical linguistics, language planning, pronouns, neologisms.)
Muy a tus órdenes: compliment responses among Mexican-American bilinguals
Authors: valdés Guadalupe , Pino Cecilia 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTRecent work in the analysis of conversational discourse has included the study of compliment responses among English-speaking American monolinguals (Pomerantz 1978). This preliminary work suggests that compliment responses are subject to separate constraint systems that involve the receiver's obligation to respond to a compliment while at the same time avoiding self-praise.This paper examines compliment responses, within the framework provided by Pomerantz, in conversational interactions between bilingual Mexican-American speakers. The strategies used by these speakers are compared with those used by monolingual English-speaking Americans and with those used by monolingual Spanish-speaking Latin Americans.
Classification of intersubjective illocutionary acts
Authors: Stiles William B. 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTAn illocutionary act presupposes not only a speaker, but also an other who is the intended recipient of the utterance's illocutionary force. Thus every illocutionary act has an intersubjective component; it connects two centers of experience in a particular way. This article proposes that the intersubjective illocutionary force of an utterance depends on (1) whether it concerns the speaker's or other's experience, (2) whether it takes the speaker's or other's viewpoint, and (3) whether or not the speaker must presume specific knowledge of the other to make the utterance. These three dichotomous principles of classification are called source of experience, frame of reference, and focus, respectively. The eight possible combinations of “speaker” and “other” values define a mutually exclusive and exhaustive set of families of intersubjective illocutionary acts – Disclosure, Advisement, Edification, Confirmation, Question, Interpretation, Acknowledgment, and Reflection – which I have elsewhere called “verbal response modes.” The modes are associated with characteristic grammatical forms, which retain a “formal” portion of their illocutionary force even when used to express a different intent, yielding a taxonomy of 64 distinct form-intent combinations. Differences between this taxonomy and other taxonomies of illocutionary acts are partially traceable to the present system's roots in the study of psychotherapeutic processes and the previous systems' roots in the study of explicit performatives.
Comprehensive discourse analysis: An instance of professional peer interaction
Authors: Grimshaw Allen D. 
Published: December 2008

AbstractWhile studies of written text continue to engage students from a number disciplines, investigations of naturally occurring talk have increased exponentially in the last decade. This paper reports on such an investigation, comprehensive discourse analysis of talk among professional peers (in a doctoral dissertation defense), attending to an instance of problematic communication and to some possible implications and interpretations of such nonsuccesses in social interaction. The method employed is an adaptation Labov and Fanshel. (Communicative nonsuccess, comprehensive discourse analysis, interaction among professional peers, naturally occurring talk, social structure, and language use.)
What no bedtime story means: Narrative skills at home and school
Authors: Heath Shirley Brice 
Published: December 2008

AbstractAbstract “Ways of taking” from books are a part of culture and as such are more varied than current dichotomies between oral and literate traditions and relational and analytic cognitive styles would suggest. Patterns of language use related to books are studied in three literate communities in the Southeastern United States, focusing on such “literacy events” as bedtime story reading. One community, Maintown, represents mainstream, middle-class school-oriented culture; Roadville is a white mill community of Appalachian origin; the third, Trackton, is a black mill community of recent rural origin. The three communities differ strikingly in their patterns of language use and in the paths of language socialization of their children. Trackton and Roadville are as different from each other as either is from Maintown, and the differences in preschoolers' language use are reflected in three different patterns of adjustment to school. This comparative study shows the inadequacy of the prevalent dichotomy between oral and literate traditions, and points also to the inadequacy of unilinear models of child language development and dichotomies between types of cognitive styles. Study of the development of language use in relation to written materials in home and community requires a broad framework of sociocultural analysis. (Crosscultural analysis, ethnography of communication, language development, literacy, narratives.)
Talking to children in Western Samoa
Authors: Ochs Elinor 
Published: December 2008

AbstractThis study examines the relation between cultural beliefs and values on the one hand and the organization of communication between caregivers and young children on the other. The study compares caregiver-child verbal interaction in two different communities, rural Western Samoa and Anglo middle class, with an emphasis on the former. It illustrates ways in which organization of turn-taking and procedures for clarification and interpretation are linked to beliefs and expectations concerning the nature of children and the social organization of caregiving. (Language acquisition, socialization, input, communicative competence, Oceania.)
Objectivity and commitment in linguistic science: The case of the Black English trial in Ann Arbor
Authors: Labov William 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTThough many linguists have shown a strong concern for social issues, there is an apparent contradiction between the principles of objectivity needed for scientific work and commitment to social action. The Black English trial in Ann Arbor showed one way in which this contradiction could be resolved. The first decade of research on Black English was marked by violent differences between creolists and dialectologists on the structure and origin of the dialect. The possibility of a joint point of view first appeared in the general reaction of linguists against the view that blacks were linguistically and genetically inferior. The entrance of black linguists into the field was a critical factor in the further development of the creole hypothesis and the recognition of the distinctive features of the tense and aspect system. At the trial, linguists were able to present effective testimony in the form of a unified view on the origins and structural characteristics of the Black English Vernacular and argue for its alidity as an alternate to standard English. (Black English, language and the law.)
The things we do with words: Ilongot speech acts and speech act theory in philosophy
Authors: Rosaldo Michelle Z. 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTI begin by introducing the Ilongots and some of their attitudes toward speech. Whereas most modem theorists think of language as a tool designed primarily to “express” or to “refer,” Ilongots think of language first in terms of action. They see commands as the exemplary act of speech, displaying less concern for the subjective meanings that an utterance conveys than for the social contexts in which utterances are heard. An ethnographic sketch thus outlines how Ilongots think of words and how their thought relates to aspects of their practice – providing an external foil for theorists found closer to home. Speech Act Theory is discussed and questioned first on internal grounds, as an approach that recognizes but slights important situational and cultural constraints on forms of language use. A consideration of the application of Searle's taxonomy of acts of speech to Ilongot categories of language use then leads to a clarification of the individualistic and relatively asocial biases of his essentially intra-cultural account. Last, I return to Ilongot directives. A partial analysis of Ilongot acts of speech provides the basis for a statement of the ways in which indigenous categodes are related to the forms that actions take, as both of these, in turn, reflect the sociocultural ordering of local worlds. (Speech acts, philosophy and ethnography, ethnography of speaking, Ilongot [Philippines].)
Poetic structuring of Kuna discourse: The line
Authors: Sherzer Joel 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTA central feature of the oral discourse of the Kuna Indians of Panama is the line. The nature of lines, verses, and other poetic and rhetorical units has recently emerged as a significant topic within the study of native American languages and discourse generally. Investigation of the structuring of Kuna lines requires attention to the intersection and interplay of linguistic, sociolinguistic, and poetic structures, patterns, and processes. (Discourse, line and verse patterning, ethnopoetics; Panama, Kuna.)
Social structure and peer terminology in a black adolescent gang
Authors: Labov Teresa 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTStudies of the social organization of adolescent groups may not have always taken into account sufficiently the dual reality of the groups in which much of the youths' activities occur. Peer terminology is useful in locating and describing the associational patterns and activities of the youth, but only if the range of possible terms is considerably broadened. It was found in a study of a Harlem street gang that such language may appear ambiguous, but when studied systematically in the interaction between interviewer and members, the misunderstandings become transparent. Peer terminological practices can be used to provide further knowledge of the reality of the social organization of adolescent primary groups. (Peer terminology, primary groups, misunderstanding, interviewing, juvenile delinquency, urban black adolescent language; verbal tags.)
The reinvention of Hugo Schuchardt (Review article)
Authors: Fought John 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTInterest in Hugo Schuchardt (1842–1927) has recently grown and broadened. A number of recent studies and collections of his work are reviewed. The conventional historiographical portrait of him shows an isolated, marginal dilettante intransigently opposed to the neogrammarian hypothesis of regular sound change. A closer look shows a large body of important work oriented around themes of language mixture, lexicalism, and the importance of the social matrix of language. His sustained work on these topics as they weave in and out of a selected group of language families, his claims to first or early priority in the wave theory, the continuum hypothesis, the creole origin of Black English, a variety of ethnoscience research, and other aspects of sociolinguistics make him a commanding figure in the history of modern linguistics. A reappraisal is called for; resources for it are noted.
Sociolinguistic issues in standardizing linguistic terminology
Authors: Bugarski Ranko 
Published: December 2008

AbstractStandardization of terminology is a process calling for a thoughtful combination of adherence to linguistic principles and awareness of the sociocultural issues involved. The case of Serbo-Croatian linguistic terminology currently used in Yugoslavia may serve as an example of the different dimensions of sociolinguistic variation in this area. Especially in culturally heterogeneous societies, the distinction between standardization and unification must be observed. (Terminology, language standardization, sociology of language, applied linguistics; Serbo-Croatian.)
Sound change and social structure in a rural community
Authors: Frazer Timothy C. 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTMost 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)