The world has become seemingly smaller with the advancements of technologies, instead of taking days to receive a written letter, it takes seconds to get an email. While the connection is obvious there still seems to be a barrier between the majority of the world's population: Language. Though it seems irrelevant in people's small communities, the…

The presence of Africans in China has been phenomenal since the late 1990s. In recent years, there has been a dramatic uptick in people from Africa coming to the major cities of China such as Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Macau, Yiwu, Shanghai, and Beijing. They are in the process of building linguistic, cultural, and economic bridges between their source…

We tested sarcasm production and identification across original communicators in a spontaneously produced conversational setting, including testing the role of synchronous movement on sarcasm production and identification. Before communicating, stranger dyads participated in either a synchronous or nonsynchronous movement task. They then completed…

The wide use of English has given rise to the World Englishes (WE) paradigm, within which there has been a growing interest in the pedagogical implications of the varieties of English. A frequently documented rationale for the marriage between second language education and WE is that WE users should be aware of the potential problems in WE…

Notes that the general public has developed an awareness of sexist language usage and has begun to make changes in its use of the word "man," and traces parallel changes that are gradually being made in the English pronoun system. (GT)

Contains an interview with journalist Edwin Newman in which Newman urges that students be taught to use language with greater precision, and a response to Newman by John S. Mayher and Rita S. Brause. (DD)

A study applied Relevance Theory to interpretation of texts written in Ghanaian English, particularly those intended for reading by multiple audiences. The nature of such "hybrid" texts is examined and key principles of Relevance Theory are outlined. Relevance is defined in terms of contextual effect and processing effort. Contextual…

Verbal and nonverbal patterns of communication found in the black community are discussed in this paper. They have been selected on the basis of their potential as interference factors in intergroup communication. A section on black language describes and explains the following categories: rapping, running it down, jiving, shucking, copping a…

The construction of an intermediate course in Mandarin Chinese for business purposes is discussed. Following an introduction in part one, part two considers the progress of trade relations between Taiwan, the People's Republic of China (PRC), and the United States. Part three gives a brief review of materials already in print that might help in…