It has been claimed that the application of ordinary language philosophy has almost entirely declined since the 1970s following the development of systematic semantic theory. This is due to the allegation that it had less interest among philosophers and moved to be a historical movement. This paper presents an overview of the application of…

The present article compares and contrasts linguistic findings from longitudinal studies of low-income Americans derived from evidence of recorded family speech interactions. Hart and Risley (1995) employed research assistants who spent 1 hour per month observing language usage among families from different socioeconomic backgrounds in their homes…

Language attrition research has developed in several clearly delimited phases spanning, roughly, each of the three decades between 1982 and 2012 (see Kopke & Schmid 2004 for a more detailed overview and analysis). The first phase was an era of stocktaking, with a number of symposia, collected volumes and special issues of journals. All of…

Vygotsky's work on the acquisition of foreign language words has been criticized for lacking a formal view of language as a system and for taking little interest in questions such as the route and rate of language acquisition. We argue that word meanings really do not constitute a formal system, either in the way they develop, or in the way they…

A study explored the efficacy of the general semantic technique of E-Prime (a technique for increasing awareness of abstraction through the deliberate deletion of all forms of the verb "to be") through a study of copula deletion (omission of auxiliary verbs) and flaming (the fervent exchange of emotionally charged messages) in electronic…

Examines "pseudoborrowing" of some English words into the French vocabulary. Considered the prestige language of Western Europe, English is viewed as a social hallmark of higher education; thus, even a modest knowledge and use of English reinforces this attitude. However, also suggests a modification of this concept, noting a reciprocal prestige…

Traces the history of sociolinguistic studies in West Germany from the early nineteenth century with Humboldt and reports on the state and purposes of sociolinguistic studies in present-day Federal Republic of Germany. Available from Liber Laeromedel, Box 1205, S-22105 Lund, Sweden (Text is in German.) (TL)

An experiment was conducted to investigate the nature of synonyms by using multidimensional scaling. The selected concept was "pig" and three of its synonyms--"hog,""boar," and "swine." These terms vary in their frequency of use in English, which makes it possible to explore a behaviorally based theory of…

The purpose of this study was to examine Japanese children's lexico-semantic development in English. Twenty-one bilingual Japanese 10- and 11-year-olds who resided with their families in New York City for an average of 2 years and 5 months participated in the study. The children were asked to write down as many Japanese color names as they could…

Sex-related language stereotypes and sex-related differences in language usage are examined in this paper, and some recent research findings that illuminate them are reported. The following topics are among those discussed: seemingly universal characterizations of women's speech as gossip, nagging, or chatting, partially explained by most…

The semantic change which has occurred in an Austrian community over the past seventy-five years is examined. The study is based on a comparison of an 1897 word list, sound inventory, and phonograph recording with 1973 recordings of sixty informants from four age groups and five socioeconomic strata. In Inmst, the development from an…

Presents a historic overview and analysis of the Sardinian language (actually a system of dialects), and defines diglossia and bilingualism. A discussion focuses on research conducted in two junior high schools to determine the differences in linguistic behavior in two contrasting situations (village and city) in regard to Sardinian and Italian.…

A study investigated the apparent inconsistency of meaning connected with the term "professor," using the problematic aspect of the term as a way of examining tacit features of a particular speech community. The "social drama" that served as a catalyst for the study centers around the presence of the national "Accuracy in…

This collection of symposium papers on varieties of the English language used in Ireland includes: "The Role of Irish English in the Formation of Colonial Englishes," by P. Trudgill; "Anglo-Irish Verse in Translation from Irish," by P. L. Henry; "The Methodology of Urban Language Studies," by J. Milroy;…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 29 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) aspects of the organization of redundancy rules in the lexicon; (2) the adult role in early child language acquisition; (3) semantic categorization,…