Examines language in a factory. Results include the following: (1) within a building, different terms for the same thing may be found; (2) the major boundary is spatial, between types of work; and (3) operational links, proximity and mobility between departments are major determinants of agreement and difference in usage. (Author/RM)

Demonstrates that prior to the beginning of the prescriptive grammar movement in English, singular "they" was accepted. By analogy with socially motivated changes in second person pronouns in various European languages, it is suggested that third person pronoun usage will be affected by current feminist opposition to sex-indefinite "he."…

The variety of syntactic forms for expression of directives is commented on. Data has been collected investigating the empirical distribution of formal variants across social features and predictability of the form of a directive if social features of its context are known. (Author/RM)

The growing secularization of Israeli lifestyle and the increasing influence of foreign languages as manifested in the local media have given rise to new forms of language secularization. This article discusses and provides examples of the secularization of Hebrew, which has split modern Hebrew into two varieties--religious and secularized. (13…

Discusses language shift in one community from German-Hungarian bilingualism to the exclusive use of German. Young women are further along in this direction than others. The linguistic contrast is shown to represent the social dichotomy between a newly available worker status and traditional peasant status. (Author/RM)

The vocative use of the Chinese term of address "tongzhi" ("comrade"), is analyzed. It was found that in its unmarked form it is a neutral term, but marked, its use becomes a negotiation to change the social distance between speaker and addressee, possibly explaining how certain such structures evolve and are maintained. (MSE)

The use of interpersonal verbal routines such as greetings and thanks is examined as a universal phenomenon of human languages. Examples from Syrian Arabic, American English and other languages are used to show differing patterns of structure and use, susceptible of grammatical and sociolinguistic analysis. (Author/RM)

The impact of church affiliation on language use, identity, and change among Kwara'ae speakers in the Solomon Islands is examined. It was found that members of different sects signal their separate identities not only through linguistic code but also through discourse patterns and nonverbal aspects of communication. (26 references) (JL)

Reports on the emergence of a new "Americanized" argot (Western cultural influences or objects) in post-Stalinist Russia. The characteristics of the argot's communicative code and the link between the code and the communicative competence of the argot-speaking groups are presented. (Author/CB)

Changing Chinese address norms are discussed, including the term "tongzhi" ("comrade") and preferred use of official titles by some Chinese officials; use of traditional terms for "Mr.", "Mrs.", and "Miss"; second singular pronouns of "ni" and "nin"; address of women; and some…

Supports a greater use of repeated recordings and elicited intuitions by sociolinguists in assessing the linguistic competence of individuals or groups. A replication of an earlier implicational analysis of pronominal variation in the Guyanese creole continuum shows that, with repeated sampling and the inclusion of elicited intuitions, the…