An examination of linguists' attempts to characterize the variety of English used in various articles and novels found that, although they used different criteria for classification, the linguists almost equally (about 30 percent of the time each) either could not identify, correctly identified, or incorrectly identified the variety. (14…

Most of the ordinary words in a language do not mean; rather, they act as rigid designators, referring to the same object in all possible words in which the object exists. Most words are names that are used as rigid designators of kinds--natural kinds (species, genre, and so forth), artifacts, physical and social magnitudes, and sorts of…

Different languages code messages in different ways and use different channels for sending messages; thus there are many places for misinterpreting and mishearing messages in an intercultural context. To move from one language to another requires a description of the total language communication system, one that has its universals in social and…

An overview of contemporary Hispanic dialectology, focusing on phonological phenomena, syntax, classification schemes, and bilingual communities, demonstrates that dialectology has long ceased to be the collection of innumerable surface deviations. It is suggested that dialectology is a theoretical discipline searching for universal principles to…