Critically examines contemporary interactional studies of the cultural specificity of human language. The study is a cross-cultural analysis of misconstrued communications in human interaction, ascertaining whether these interactions are crucially dependent on nonlinguistic variables. (CB)

Proposes to establish the correct Black cultural perspective on the role and function of personal insults in sounding and the boundary between play and nonplay. Considers different cultural consequences that would stem from regarding personal insults to be part of verbal play or not, and shows similarity in the structure and function of…

Analyzes salutations in 75 letters of application. The 28 applicants who used masculine greetings used four different forms. The 47 who used sex-neutral greetings used 19 different forms. Looks at the applicants' qualifications, sex, and region of the country in which they live as factors influencing the writers' choices of salutations. (SED)

In an investigation of the use of the word "hey" in pseudoquotations, invented quotations, in current English communication, tokens (n=26) were collected from public and commercial broadcasts and miscellaneous readings. A speaker uses quote formula + hey + pseudoquotation to dramatize and give emphasis to an important point. (72…

Presents theory of "audience design" which assumes that speakers design their style of talk for their audience, and examines how speakers do this. Also examines the effects on style shift of nonpersonal factors (such as topic and setting) and of referees (the class of persons with whom the speaker identifies). (SED)

Two speech events, narration and joking conversation, are analyzed from speech samples of Hawaiian 5- to 7-year-olds. An underlying iterative routine was found which allows for both stories and joking to be produced jointly in a contrapuntal style. (Author/RM)

Describes a study that investigated the distribution of the pronouns of address in the German Democratic Republic by looking at the pronouns and terms of address in different newspaper tests. Pronoun use was dependent on the kind of text, on party membership, nationality, social class, and the roles of the addressee and addressed. (SED)

Describes a range of forms and functions expressed by "you know," as well as its use by women and men in a corpus of spontaneous speech. Interesting contrasts were found in the most frequent functions expressed by "you know" in female and male usage. (Author/SED)

Examined the tense system of Samana English, a lineal descendant of early nineteenth-century American Black English. A past tense marker comparable in surface form, function, and distribution to that of Standard English was found. Comparison with varieties of contemporary Black English Vernacular (BEV) and English-based Creoles showed a structural…

The 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 importance of these demands, their nature, how adults deal with them, and their effects on children's communicative development are discussed. (CHK)

The impact of church affiliation on language use, identity, and change among Kwara'ae speakers in the Solomon Islands is examined. It was found that members of different sects signal their separate identities not only through linguistic code but also through discourse patterns and nonverbal aspects of communication. (26 references) (JL)

Suggests an alternative approach to the variable rule method of accounting for linguistic variability. This alternative approach, which is sensitive to social context and the relevance of meaning, is used to support an analysis of "-ing/in'" variability in some North American industrial workers' speech. (SED)

Ethnographic analysis of a Black female urban community college teacher's classroom speech revealed two distinct but culturally appropriate ways of speaking. Results regarding comparison of the speech events' effects on student participation and their interpretations and meanings are discussed. (Author/CB)

Analyzes an Afro-American sermon and a disputed speech by a Black political leader to mixed audience. Dialect alternants signal switching between contrasting styles in both. Conversational inference is shown to depend not only on grammar, lexical meanings, and conversational principles, but also on constellations of speech variants, rhythm, and…