Discusses how children in one society on the Papuan Plateau, Papua, New Guinea, learn about making and responding to requests based on a strategy of appeal. (FL)

Examines the use of addressee honorifics (the "masu" form) and their nonhonorific counterpart (the plain form) at home and in classroom interactions at elementary schools in Japan from the perspective of language socialization. Finds that both at home and school the "masu" and plain forms are used as indices of the mode of…

Three experiments conducted with normal adults in both Israel and the United States show that the answers people give to questions vary with the category of the target and its distance. (FL)

Examines social differences in expectations of indirectness in conversations between married couples, both Greek and Greek-American. Concludes that Greeks are more likely to expect indirectness in the context presented and that Greek-Americans have retained the Greek communicative patterns. (FL)

Finds important differences between Quebecois and French mothers: the Quebecois mothers spoke more than French mothers and produced a greater number of assertive and expressive speech acts than the French mothers. Shows that speech used in both of these cultural groups varies according to the mother's child-rearing style, with coercive mothers…

Analyzes patterns of laughter in bookshop service encounters in England and Italy. Finds that in the English corpus, laughter is recurrently turn-initial, anticipating an account by the assistant in the same turn, whereas in the Italian corpus it is recurrently turn-final, leaving to the customer the possibility of eliciting an account and/or an…

Contributes to research on child-directed speech by examining the use of two types of utterances (reported speech and prompts) in interactions involving mothers, toddlers, and other adults or siblings in rural Senegal. Shows that mothers attempt to promote exchange in a triadic framework, with the goal of making the child part of a complex set of…

Examines some interactional details of a court case that took place in the Mexican community of Tenejapa. Suggests that courtroom behavior in Tenejapa uniquely allows for direct confrontation in a society where a premium is placed on interactional restraint. Explores the implications of this Tenejapan phenomenon for the relations between language…