The 1980 and 1990 volumes of "The State of the Language," edited by Michaels and Ricks, are reviewed, including the selection of topics and contributors. (two references) (LB)

The phenomena of overlapping talk is examined. In numerous types of conversational exchanges, people briefly acknowledge the utterance that overlapped their own and then recycle an overlapped utterance and/or introduce a new topic. Three types of objects are illustrated and discussed: an acknowledgment token, an assessment, and a commentary. (four…

Suggests that the form of English called "E-Prime" (which eliminates all forms of the verb "to be") has a certain attraction, but argues that many important uses of the verb "to be" remain in the English language. Provides examples and develops a method of designating the various forms of the verb in terms of the…

This study of 3 boys (ages 5-6) with autism found that adult high-constraint antecedent utterances elicited more verbal utterances in general, including subjects' echolalia; adult low-constraint utterances elicited more subject high-constraint utterances; and the degree of adult-utterance constraint did not influence the mean lengths of subjects'…

Examines the language of the underworld, a language that includes slang spoken in prisons. This language functions not so much as a secret code whose primary purpose is to deceive but as a means by which members share an identity. Such speech fosters group solidarity, mutual recognition, prestige, and a sense of exclusiveness. (25 references) (CK)

This booklet is divided into two sections. Section 1, "A Few Words on Language, Courtesies, and Stereotypes," gives suggestions on speaking to and about people with disabilities. Principles of language use include: (1) put people first, not their disability; (2) avoid identifying a group of people as a disability category; (3) avoid…

American Italian exhibits interference from English in loanwords, loanblends, loanshift extensions and loan translations, and some of these are analyzed in this paper. (CK)

"Tilin Garcia," a novel by Cuban author Carlos Enriquez, reveals many regional expressions of the province of Camaguey, Cuba. This linguistic study of the novel examines some of the colorful vocabulary and its literal and figurative meanings. (Text is in Spanish.) (CK)

This article proposes a new analysis of illocutionary force, in terms of discourse practices, and specifically analyzes the act of reproaching. (Text is in French.) (CLK)

A set of five noun features proposed by Chomsky for characterizing the selectional restriction of English verbs are examined. Examples are presented to show how the "small" set of features is both "too broad" and "too narrow" at once. (SW)

In English there seems to be a large group of so-called reflexive verbs that do not possess any definable reflexive meaning. Grammatical reflexives are distinguishable from semantic reflexives and display considerable variation from one another also. Eight patterns or groupings of verbs are considered. (Author/SW)

The grammatical deviations produced by 26 migrant children were categorized into tenses (formation and usage), pronoun usage, subject-verb agreement, possessive adjectives, negation, number concord in antecedents, irregular morpheme construction, irregular syntactic constructions, modification of nouns, preposition substitution, word omission in…

The nonuse of slang terms for cash among British bank and building society cashiers is noted and an explanation sought in the field of social control. The possible relevance of the Whorfian hypothesis is explored, and it is suggested that the in-house terms discussed have social, psychological and representational functions. (Author/CB)