Linguist Rosina Lippi-Green concludes in her book, "English with an Accent: Language, Ideology, and Discrimination in the United States," "Accent discrimination can be found everywhere in our daily lives. In fact, such behavior is so commonly accepted, so widely perceived as appropriate, that it must be seen as the last back door to…

Previous language attitude studies indicated that in many countries all over the world, English language learners perceived native accents, either American or British, more positively than the non-native accents such as the Japanese, Korean, and Austrian accents. However, in Malaysia it is still unclear which accent Malaysian learners of English…

A study was undertaken to gather attitudes of Spanish-speakers toward specific types of Chicano Spanish dialect lexical items. Reactions were randomly taken from 11 Latin American students who attended Southern Illinois University at Carbondale during the 1975 spring semester; 20 Mexican residents of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, who attended English as…

Reviews public expressions about the state of the English language and attempts to show that this interest in language should be viewed by language professionals as an opportunity to clarify issues. Four strategies are presented dealing with language variability, linguistics, and the "joy" and usefulness of language variation. (Author/AMH)

Assesses phonological continuity and change in the last stage of the moribund dialect called "Negerhollands" in the Danish West Indies (DWI). The article contrasts earlier and current views of this dialect, sketches language contact in the DWI, examines the last speaker's language history and vowel systems, and assesses variation in a…

This paper presents certain innovations in the "matched-guise" technique of dialect study, which is used to determine people's immediate evaluative responses to tape-recorded speakers of various accents, dialects and languages. (CHK)

This paper reports on the Arkansas Language Survey, which had two purposes: (1) to explore the idea advanced by Labov that Americans generally have negative attitudes about their language, and to see to what extent this applies to Arkansawyers; and (2) to determine how Arkansawyers judge the way other Americans speak English. The twenty-four white…

Traces the history of sociolinguistic studies in West Germany from the early nineteenth century with Humboldt and reports on the state and purposes of sociolinguistic studies in present-day Federal Republic of Germany. Available from Liber Laeromedel, Box 1205, S-22105 Lund, Sweden (Text is in German.) (TL)

Discusses the major language shift in Singapore from the familial use of varieties of Chinese other than Mandarin towards the languages of education, English and Mandarin. An ethnographic study is presented of a Singaporean Chinese family that has moved from Cantonese to English, and the underlying pressures leading to this shift are examined. (19…

This volume contains twelve articles dealing with the French language as spoken in Quebec. The following topics are addressed: (1) language change and variation; (2) coordinating expressions in the French spoken in Montreal; (3) expressive language as source of language change; (4) the role of correction in conversation; (5) social change and…

Speakers of West Flemish dialect in switching to standard Netherlandic must choose between two sets of supra-regional lexical items: the Netherlandic and the non-Netherlandic alternative. A study was carried out in July and August 1974 to determine whether it can be stated that the supra-regional language is moving towards Netherlandic. Thirteen…

The semantic change which has occurred in an Austrian community over the past seventy-five years is examined. The study is based on a comparison of an 1897 word list, sound inventory, and phonograph recording with 1973 recordings of sixty informants from four age groups and five socioeconomic strata. In Inmst, the development from an…

This issue contains proceedings of a colloquium on linguistics at the University of Neuchatel: (1) "Propositions epistemologiques pour une etude du bilinguisme (Epistemological Propositions for a Study of Bilingualism)," by B. Py; (2) "Comment on di ca? Prolegomenes a une etude de la composante semantique du langage des migrants (How Do You Say…

These papers on the subject of the Swiss German language examine the status and attitudes of the Swiss German speaker, the reaction of other linguistic communities to Swiss German, and the necessity and/or possibility of learning Swiss German. The following articles are included: (1) "Le 'Schwyzertutsch': ecran ou lien? (Is Swiss German a…