Arabic varieties show explicit linguistic behavior, especially at the syntactic level. This apparent diversity is mainly due to how syntactic rules confine the scope and the flexibility of movement of certain constituents inside and outside their syntactic domains. This paper examines solely how the mother tongue from which all these varieties…

The present article compares and contrasts linguistic findings from longitudinal studies of low-income Americans derived from evidence of recorded family speech interactions. Hart and Risley (1995) employed research assistants who spent 1 hour per month observing language usage among families from different socioeconomic backgrounds in their homes…

From the early twentieth century to the present day, Transcarpathia has belonged to several states: the Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy, Czechoslovakia, the Hungarian Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and finally to Ukraine. The status of what counts as a minority and a majority language has changed each time the state affiliation has been changed. Based on…

This dissertation is about what prosody contributes to dialogue interpretation. The view of prosody developed in this account is based on detailed quantitative investigations of the prosodic forms and interpretations of cue word and declarative responses, specifically with respect to the distribution and interpretation of terminal pitch rises.…

The main goal of this paper is to shift the focus on "learning" away from the traditional locus of inquiry in SLA--the L2 classroom--in order to extend the SLA empirical database, and by so doing extend and broaden our understanding of what it means to learn and use (in mutually reinforcing and enlightening ways) an additional, or second,…

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…

Reports on a sociolinguistic survey conducted in Tokyo, Japan, that explores the social factors that relate to the use of nonstandard expressions among younger people. Sex, media exposure, and friendship networks were found to influence language standardization. (25 references) (Author/OD)

A fundamental problem in the study of spontaneous speech is how to segment it for analysis. The segments should be relevant for the study of linguistic structures, speech planning, speech production, or communication strategies. Operational rules for segmentation should consider a wide variety of criteria and be hierarchically ordered. This is…

A study was conducted of the Baie Sainte-Marie Acadian dialect, a particular form of the French language derived from the French spoken in France during the 16th and 17th centuries. The purpose of this study was to analyze and explain a certain number of morphosyntactic deviations from standard French, from both a synchronic and a diachronic…

Discusses the nature of the difference between dialectology and sociolinguistics and suggests that the findings of dialectology are relevant for use by sociolinguists. (30 references) (CK)

A detailed study is reported of the linguistic adaptation of a white girl in a predominantly black school in Camden, New Jersey. The girl is a cultural heroine in the area, having earned the admiration of both blacks, and Puerto Ricans by her ability in fighting, dancing, talking, and dealing with the opposite sex. Subjective reaction tests show…

This volume is devoted to papers of an empirical or theoretical nature contributing to the study of language and communicative bahavior in the Philippines. Articles included are: (1) "Three Criteria for Establishing Dialect Boundries," by Michael Ross Walrod; (2) "Topic in Tagalog Revisited," by Teresita C. Rafael; (3)…

This issue contains two articles in Spanish and three in English on the following topics: the practical presentation of English for Special Purposes (ESP) materials in science programs at the National University of Trujillo, "notional syllabus" and "discourse analysis" in relation to ESP materials, extra-linguistic principles in explaining…

This paper draws from a number of sources, from Muhammad Ali to TV commercials, to demonstrate the quite different conceptions that black and white Americans have of the meaning of boasting and bragging. For blacks, boasting and bragging are two distinct ways of speaking and communication. Boasting is a joking, playful verbal bahavior, not to be…

This paper presents linguistic evidence for communication problems in everyday classroom interactions where children are dialect speakers. It also examines the problem of coding language functions for use in experiments. (RB)