The need to teach students speaking skills in Spanish, and to choose among the many standard dialects spoken in the Hispanic world (as well as literary and colloquial speech), presents a challenge to the Spanish teacher. Some phonetic considerations helpful in solving these problems are offered. (CHK)

A study examined the different strategies used by speakers of Egyptian Arabic to ward off the potential effects of the evil eye, specifically the responding strategies to compliments perceived as invocations of evil as it relates to the gender of the recipient of the compliment and the social context in which the compliment takes place. Social…

Proposes an analysis of Spanish indefinite "se" which takes into consideration regional variations. (AM)

Variations in the use of perfect "have" and its alternatives in the Trinidadian creole continuum are examined, based on data from a sample of speakers from different social backgrounds. The findings have implications for the study of morphosyntactic variation in other divergent dialect situations. (Contains 56 references.) (Author/LB)

Examined a nonstandard pattern of agreement found in certain varieties of Atlantic Canada Acadian French. Quantitative analysis of subject-verb agreement patterns in Newfoundland French revealed consistent invariant behavior in this dialect, or, where there is variation, variation constrained according to specific linguistically based factors. (19…

Discusses a recent British project that aimed to incorporate sociolinguistic research into classroom procedures. One of the goals of the project was to enlist teachers and their students as researchers, to obtain systematic information on local dialect grammar. (39 references) (VWL)

Two articles examine Ebonics and its relation to the teaching of English as a Second Language. The first suggests that teachers of English, literacy instructors, and educational policy makers need to take language differences into account. The second suggests that the issues around Ebonics are the issues vital to all language educators--language,…

Discusses Ocracoke English as an endangered dialect, examining the social responsibility linguists and dialectologists should assume in documenting and disseminating information about the state of moribund dialects and describing a community-based, collaborative model involving the development of materials and programs that foster knowledge of and…

The purpose of the study reported here was: (1) to determine whether any predictable relationships exist between the spoken language patterns of individuals and those individuals' ethnic attitudes; and (2) to identify the degree of association present among various selected demographic factors, language patterns, and ethnic attitudes. The…

This volume is a collection of articles which are concerned with the field of applied linguistics. Part One, "Language and Linguistics," includes two articles: "Language" and "The Relevance of Linguistics." Part Two, "Linguistics and Spelling," consists of one article, "Sounds and Spellings; Spellings and Sounds." Part Three, "Linguistics and…

This study reports on preliminary findings of two research projects conducted during the 1988-89 and 1990-91 in Cordoba, Argentina, that examined fixed, idiomatic, Spanish-language expressions that are very common, but often ignored, in oral Spanish discourse. Study 1 subjects were 13 university-educated, adults, born in the city; study 2 subjects…

Some syntactic patterns of the variety of English used by students in the final year of formal learning of English are analyzed. In addition, the nature of the lectal continuum of South Asian English (SAE) is discussed, including alternative conceptions of Standard SAE and evaluation of other lects. The discussion is based on an analysis of…

As the field of sociolinguistics has emerged, its terminology, which like many other emerging disciplines contains many neologisms and new usages, has sometimes been called insensitive. This reaction may interfere with serious examination of the field's content. Areas of disagreement or dispute include terms used for the speech of black…

An examination of some surface differences between quantifier phrases (QP) in standard Italian, Genoese dialect, and French is reported. The analysis makes specific reference to the distribution of empty noun phrase and adjectival phrase categories in SpecN, and uses the concept of inflectional rules. Although details have not yet been worked out,…

By some standards, Brazil would be considered linguistically homogeneous because more than 85 percent of the population speaks Portuguese, but this view does not account for the multitude of dialects and Indian languages spoken there or for the German-speaking or other bilingual groups in the country. In addition, little information is available…