This paper argues that Dev Virahsawmy, an author who manipulates literary translation for the purposes of linguistic prestige formation and re-negotiation, is a critical language-policy practitioner, as his work fills an important gap in language planning scholarship. A micro-analysis of the translation of a Shakespearean sonnet into Mauritian…

It has been recently argued that the particles in Colloquial Singapore English (CSE) constitute a grammatical category that actively draws new members to it. Drawing on distributional and collocational evidence, this paper establishes that CSE has a new particle, "ya". The paper then proceeds to analyse the discourse pragmatic function…

Investigates simultaneous talk in face-to-face conversation using the analytic framework of "floor" proposed by Edelsky (1981). Analysis of taped conversation among speakers of Japanese and among speakers of English shows that, while both groups use simultaneous talk, it is used more frequently by Japanese speakers. A reference list…

An interactional approach for studies of English as a nonnative language is proposed. The approach entails the adoption of ethnomethodological perspectives on social knowledge, combined with conversation analytic interests in detailing the locally managed character of spoken interaction, and introducing the term "lingua franca" English to describe…

Examines the current tradition of cross-cultural speech act research and concludes that each of the approaches so far proposed for analyzing cross-cultural speech acts is inadequate in one respect or another. (45 references) (GLR)

Provides a critical review of the syntactic study of code mixing, discussing data drawn from African and South Asian languages, and focuses particular attention on the syntactic constraints paradigm. An examination of seven major surface constraints, deemed to have universal applicability, shows that none of these constraints is universal. (53…

Discusses the use of English loanwords in Japanese discourse from a cognitive perspective and reveals how the world knowledge of English loanwords is applied to a text and constitutes an integral component of the discourse production process both within and beyond the sentence level. (40 references) (MDM)

Examines interactional strategies in several South Asian languages. The norms that affect politeness in South Asian languages are very different from those that operate in native English. Implications for teaching English in South Asia are discussed in terms of the relationship between language and "grammar of culture." (Author/LMO)

Examines a source of linguistic data--newspapers--and discusses related problems of text-type classification and feature interpretation. Using texts from East Africa as a database, the article assesses the influence of different production contexts on the text composition and analyzes the samples for the multifunctional variable of…

Analyzes spoken and written Hindi and Indian English texts and explores relationship between gender and communication. The features associated with each discourse type in informal female same-sex conversations and in written same-sex dialogues in each language are described. (Author/LMO)

Examined the use and importance of lectal power among candidates interviewed for admittance to a teacher education college in multilingual Singapore. At the syntactic level, the competent or incompetent use of syntactic features such as tag nouns chosen by the interviewees revealed the extent of the lectal power in their possession. (27…

Examines a specific type of code switching that occurs when bilingual peers make relevant their dual and simultaneous membership in the two groups symbolized by the two linguistic varieties involved in the switching pattern. Structural constraints and switching are discussed across code-switching types. (31 references) (Author/OD)

Describes aspects of lexico-semantic variation in Nigerian English. The causes and types of variation are discussed within the a sociolinguistic framework, and implications of such variations, with reference to international intelligibility and communication strategies, are examined. (20 references) (Author/OD)

Examines code mixing and borrowing across two generations of New York Puerto Ricans, and explores the possibility of existence of a lifecycle of language use in the community. (26 references) (Author/OD)

Provides a brief account and explanation of the phenomenon of language use among the Baba community, which uses Hokkien, Malay, and English in the process of code selection and code mixing/switching. Data are drawn from recordings of conversation of the Babas and Nyonyas. (Author/OD)