This paper reports a study of the use of non-standard English in the formal speech of 15-year-olds of both genders and of varying attainment levels. The pupils were drawn from two schools on Tyneside which take pupils from catchment areas of markedly different socioeconomic status. Differences were found in the incidence of non-standard lexis and…

The extension of the progressive aspect to stative verbs has been identified as a characteristic feature of New Varieties of English across the world, including the English of black South Africans (BSAfE). This paper examines the use of the progressive aspect in BSAfE, by doing a comparative analysis of three corpora of argumentative student…

Relationships among African American English (AAE), linguistic knowledge, and spelling skills were examined in a sample of 92 children in grades one through three whose speech varied in the frequency of morphosyntactic AAE features. Children were separated into groups of high (AAE speakers) and low (standard American English, SAE, speakers) use of…

Though diversity serves as a valuable source for rhetorical inquiry, expressivist instructors who privilege diversity writing may also overemphasize the essential authenticity of their students' vernaculars. This romantic and salvationist impulse reveals the troubling implications of eighteenth-century Natural Language Theory and may,…

This publication of proceedings, most in English and some in Chinese, of a conference on Chinese languages and linguistics include the following papers: "On Rule Effect and Dialect Classification" (Chin-Chuan Cheng); "Cross-Linguistic Typological Variation, Grammatical Relations, and the Chinese Language" (Bernard Comrie);…

The dictionary for Central and E-Saan varieties of Thai is designed as a reference for use by Peace Corps volunteers assigned to northeastern Thailand. An introductory section gives an overview of the dictionary's content and design. Most of the words included are functional vocabulary, and the usage is illustrated in sample sentences written in…

The dictionary for Central to Southern varieties of Thai is designed as a reference for use by Peace Corps volunteers assigned to southern Thailand. An introductory section gives an overview of the dictionary's content and design and some notes on tone patterns and spelling variation in the Central and Southern varieties. Most of the words…

Attitudes toward usage, accent, and dialect in spoken English are examined, drawing on literature in the field and data from a British study of year 9 students' (pupils aged 13-14) language awareness. The dilemma inherent in teaching standard spoken usage while encouraging maintenance of ethnic and regional identity is examined, with attention…

This study examined the speech act of agreement and disagreement in the ordinary conversation of English-speakers in India. Data were collected in natural speech elicited from educated, bilingual speakers in cross-sex and same-sex conversations in a range of formal and informal settings. Subjects' ages ranged from 19 to about 60. Five agreement…

A study of middle verb constructions in Canadian French and Madrid Spanish suggests that two alleged defining characteristics of these constructions are not really defining characteristics. These are: (1) that the constructions only appear in generic sentences, and (2) that they disallow "by"-phrases of the type found in passive…

A language research project investigated the phenomenon of transcreation, that is, the transference of the linguistic markers, communicative strategies, cultural notions, social elements, and contextual clues of the local culture to the native English variety. The focus is on the relationship between language and gender and the contribution of…

A study of differences in linguistic behavior between men and women in Amman, Jordan, used a random sample of 150 individuals as subjects. Distribution of lexical items was examined for variation correlating lexical choice with sex of the speaker, and phonological variable standardization and the manner in which choice of variant is conditioned by…

The "Southwest" dialect, previously isolated in San Antonio, Texas, has been isolated south of that area. Data were drawn from the Linguistic Atlas of the Gulf States (LAGS) and interviews with ten lower-middle/upper-lower class informants. Seven communities were represented by seven female and three male English speakers (four…

The City University of New York is an ideal home for the doctoral training center in urban and applied linguistics since it is located in an area with a large number of non-English speakers demonstrating varied dialect forms, immigrant groups from many countries, and individuals representing all economic and social levels. In addition, there are…

This article attempts to assess the validity of dividing Polish students of English into British and American groups. The tests of the various hypotheses regarding linguistic and non-linguistic results of such divisions are described. (AM)