This paper investigates the treatment of Japanese speech levels and styles (known as "keigo") in previous studies and discusses the problems involved. An attempt is made to reconstruct the classification of speech levels and styles in modern colloquial Japanese. Speech styles change according to age, social status, sex, and the…

Ongoing change in Wolof noun classification is traced by comparing nineteenth-century linguistic evidence with modern sociolinguistic data. Upwardly mobile middle-aged men of high caste tend to reduce the noun class system, whereas other speakers tend to elaborate it. (Author/RM)

This discussion of standard language and dialect is based on opinions and theories regarding Slavonic languages. A set of objective criteria is offered. Distinctions between language, standard language, dialect, glottolect and sociolect are made, and social and political conditions which give rise to them are discussed. References are included.…

This paper discusses difficulties in defining Standard American English, and the question of whether there is a need to define it. Several theories on why such a dialect should be defined are described. These are: the "propriety" theory, the "psychological" theory, the "power and prestige" theory, and the "better tool" theory, the "psychological"…

The present work is divided into two parts. Part I provides a general orientation to the material for both linguists and non-linguists. Part II contains information about 700 of the world's languages. Chapter 1 presents a few of the essentials about language and languages for non-linguists. Chapter 2 provides a brief explanation of how the data…

This report provides data on standard and non-standard African language varieties occurring in urban areas of South Africa, drawn from nine smaller reports. It illustrates the language use patterns in black urban communities and describes the language varieties spoken in them. It was found that the impact of non-standard varieties on the use of…

This paper discusses the problem of language standardization in education. The areas to which standardization may refer - phonology, spelling, punctuation, grammar and lexicon - are discussed, and problems associated with efforts to standardize them in schools are pointed out. The position taken is that a decision to promote language standards…

Formality as a style may be defined as language which reflects or "keynotes" the degree of familiarity between participants in a discourse. Working from this assumption, this paper attempts to answer the question, "How is formality best described?" Results of a series of tests indicate that informants' labels (with the…

What has been labelled mainstream dialectology has been criticized soundly on theoretical grounds, yet mainstream dialectologists have responded with the assertion that their critics have not been intimately familiar with dialect methodology and are therefore not qualified to criticize. Claiming that while theoretical issues are far from being…