The research described here confirmed the hypothesis that for each variable, the Hispanic variant is realized in higher percentages in syllable-timed utterances and that the non-Hispanic variant is realized in higher percentages in stress-timed utterances. (Author/RM)

Some results are reported of an investigation into the meanings of the English modal auxiliary verbs. The corpus consisted of the one million word Brown University corpus of American English and a matching Lancaster University corpus of British English. The three factors operative in the study were: (1) contextual features, that is, co-occurring…

Syntactic synonymy enables the speaker to use syntactic devices to say the same thing in a number of different ways. It is based on three criteria: (1) similarity of semantic content, (2) certain syntactic similarity between the components of the synonymous structures, and (3) differences in surface structures. The third criterion separates…

A remarkable aspect of the present-day American linguistic and intellectual scene is the fact that public attitudes about language reflect neither scholarly efforts in the field of linguistics nor the intellectual spirit of the twentieth century in general. Prescriptive, absolutist linguistic attitudes on the part of intelligent, educated people…

Suggests that stylistic variation should be used by linguistis in their search for linguistic structure. (AM)

Examines the loss of the impersonal construction in modern English and proposes an explanation based on the psychological evolution of the concept of "person." (Author/AM)

Analyzes the kinds of simplified Chinese characters currently in unofficial use, collected from personal correspondence and published discussions. (KM)

Terms for new concepts and modernized notions are being constantly produced in the major world languages. These terms--"neologisms"--have to be rendered in other languages, thus enriching these languages. A program for research and the production of glossaries is suggested to translators and national translation societies. (AMH)

The origin, etymology and phonology of two words of Chinese origin found in Peruvian Spanish are outlined. The words, "chifa" and "chaufa," derive from Cantonese words for "rice" and have been adapted into Spanish. (CHK)

A discussion of disappearing and no longer used languages in anthropomorphic metaphors "language death" and "language suicide." Three stages in the disappearance of several specific languages are described. Ultimately, the direct cause of "language suicide" is not disappearance of rules but disappearance of speakers;…

Studies the English-speaking and French-speaking populations of the Gaspe, focusing on socioeconomic status, mother tongue retention and bilingualism rates. This is followed by a detailed study of a small, linguistically mixed community in Gaspe East, reconstructing the community as it was in 1925 and describing it as it was in 1970. (Author/RM)

Tests Ervin-Tripps's hypotheses concerning the relationship between several social and ecological factors and the choice of directive variants in English, using as a sample a predominantly Black male migratory agricultural labor population. Found that most of the predictions derived from Ervin-Tripp's model for these directive variants were…

Describes the use of English in literature written by nonnative speakers. These "new-English" authors present new elements and structures within a matrix of internationally "standard" English. Various pragmatic dimensions of creativity in selected works by such authors are described. (Author/LMO)

Describes the lexical characteristics of South African Indian English, focusing on its similarities with English in India, pidgins and creoles, and other expatriate Indian Englishes. (Author/CB)

Describes the use of a small set of linguistic variables in different types of radio programs from Radio Cymru (the Welsh language radio network), to see whether variation does correlate with style as it does in the community. Results show that broadcasters followed community norms for these variables. (SED)