For the past five years, the Alutiiq Museum and Archaeological Repository has been documenting intricacies of the Alutiiq language with the help of Elder speakers and a grant from the National Science Foundation (#1360839). The project's primary focus has been recording vocabulary, grammar, and ways of speaking for this threatened Native Alaskan…

The public's concern with the fate of the standard language has been well documented in the history of the complaint tradition. The print media have for centuries featured letters to the editor on questions of language use. This study examines a corpus of 258 language-related letters to the editor published in the English-speaking print media. By…

This literature review focuses on presenting an overview of research on language and gender. An introduction to the factors influencing language use will first be made. Second, a brief discussion on sex and gender will be made to clarify the terminology used in the literature. Third, physical differences between men and women will also be pointed…

This paper starts by examining recent work by applied linguists who argue that creativity is not only a property of especially skilled and gifted language users, but is pervasive in routine everyday practice. Also variously addressing literariness, language play and humour, this apparent democratization of creativity contributes to a more general…

Assesses the role of identity in interlanguage development and performance, focusing on what research suggests about the relationship of identity to the speaker's overall target, to selected features of the speaker's interlanguage, and to target language speakers' attitudes toward the interlanguage speaker. (Author/CB)

Reviews corpus-based research that draws on theoretical insights from systemics, genre, and discourse analysis for exploration of small-scale specialized corpora of academic writing. (Author/VWL)

This article discusses professional language and communication in real-life settings and provides a critical overview of research on language for specific purposes. Ideas for renewing this field of study are presented. (78 references) (MDM)

It is suggested that the literature on communicative competence, replete with various formulations, mirrors the diversity of language outlined by Martin Joos in his essay "The Five Clocks." Three concepts of communicative competence are reviewed, in historical perspective. The first, promoted by Norm Chomsky, distinguished linguistic…

Defining peak as the climax of discourse, this paper argues that it is important to identify peak in order to get at the overall grammar of a given discourse. The paper presents case studies in which four instances of peak in narrative discourses occur in languages from four different parts of the world. It also illustrates the occurrence of a…

A review of the acquisition of second-language phonology focuses on the following areas: (1) the various factors that have been found to influence the acquisition process, and (2) a discussion of topics in the phonological description of the learner language. (46 references) (GLR)

A comparative analysis of four studies that emphasized linguistic similarities (rather than differences) between nonstandard speakers and other groups focused on developmental characteristics of the semantic categories encoded by nonstandard speakers compared with other speakers. Implications for language assessment are discussed. (JW)

Strengths and weaknesses of three approaches to the study of the input requirements of second language learners are described. The data-oriented, the language-model, and the processing-model approaches are then compared with respect to their claims concerning the metalinguistic needs of the learner. (Author/CB)

Reviews current research on three important language variables in search of a pattern. Discusses the nature of these variables, offers 26 generalizations supported by the studies, and derives implications from these generalizations. Areas for future research are suggested. (JMF)

Reviews what recent research into speaking-writing relationships has to say about a particular problem of unskilled writers--those who tend to write as if they were talking. Examines the differences and interdependence of oral dialogue and written monologue. (RL)

The Communication Committee of the South African National Council for the Deaf is currently developing an artificial sign language which could be used with all of the country's ethnolinguistic groups. Guidelines and constraints for developing such an artificial language are outlined. (CB)