Reports on four Australian experiments using Lambert's Matched Guise Technique for obtaining sociolinguistic attitudes. The accents studied include Australian; Received Pronunciation English, Liverpool, Glasgow Scots, East Coast U.S.A., French, German, and Italian. (EKN)

Analyzes the mechanisms involved in speech level shift in discourse that contains the "des/mas" forms. Concludes that level shift is often used to signal empathy between speakers and to indicate coherence and the hierarchical positioning of utterances in discourse. (EKN)

Dedicates this issue of "Language Sciences" to Roy Harris, former Professor of Linguistics at Oxford University, on the occasion of his 65th birthday. The article points out that because of Harris's writing style and arguments, he is viewed as a skeptic, who approaches any topic from the perspective of philosophy rather than that of…

Discusses the implications of the three-dimensional sign proposed by Harris (1990) for general linguistic theory and the philosophy of language. The article places the principal characteristics of the three-dimensional sign (contextuality, cotemporality, communicational relevance, and experiential grounding) against those of the two-dimensional…

Presents diverse theories and concepts of style. A step-by-step analytical procedure for the stylistic examination of texts is provided, which ranges from a brief summary to which other levels of analysis are related, through diction, register tone, punctuation, clausal and sentence types, paragraphing, schemes of construction, and figures of…

Discusses the tradition of argument about what forms of metalinguistic discourse are valid, useful, and significant in the era of modern Western linguistics, with particular reference to the argument between linguistic science and prescriptivism. The article emphasizes that linguistic norms are open to challenge and change about what their nature…

Discusses Austin's ideas about language in relation to the ideas of Roy Harris, and, more specifically, the Austinian attitude toward language and integrational linguistics.(seven references) (CK)

Considers the socio-stylistic distinction of the French variable morpho-syntactic particle "ne." The interspeaker axes of variation in "ne" are summarized, and intraspeaker data deriving from a corpus of spoken French are considered. Examines intraspeaker variation in "ne" by focusing on the use of the variable by a single speaker in both speech…

In dealing with the differences between the school and non-school language of Black children, the author uses a contingency grammar," which considers all speakers of a language to have the identical linguistics competence but includes a level of systematic performance" to account for dialectal and other systematic differences. (FB)

Focuses on the language of civil engineering as manifested in the professional journal "Civil Engineering ASCE." Articles are analyzed, both syntactically and lexically, in terms of three major rhetorical functions: description, prescription, and persuasion. (17 references) (GLR)

The premise that diglossamania, which is a pressure for second language learners to produce in English the equivalent style of the mother tongue, and which in turn leads to an artificial style, is discussed. (HP)

Examines the indirect strategies applied in the relationship between power and language, with particular reference to Eastern (Asian) verbal context. Argues that indirectness is both a form of politeness where a speaker avoids expressing himself explicitly and a style of formulating speech acts, which has an inherent pragmatic role. (32…

Discusses the role of rule in language as well as the role of the linguist in preserving and/or altering the rules. The article lists three terms and the distinctions among them emerging from Harris's viewpoint: law of nature, rule, and regularity. (14 references) (CK)

This experiment using the matched-guise technique in a natural setting shows that listeners' cooperative behavior can be influenced by a speaker's style of speech not only in a face-to-face situation, but also on the basis of voice cues alone. Broadness of pronunciation also influences reactions. (POP)

Interindividual and intragroup code-switching between the local and urban dialects is related to the degree of interplay among sociocultural factors of status, integrity and self-esteem present in the speech situation. In formal meetings, code-switching is governed by these factors with speakers manipulating the parameters of status while…