A situation of linguistic contact often produces various degrees of change in at least one of the languages involved. It is shown that the syntactic, as well as the phonological and the lexical, components are the locus of interference from one language on the other. Features of interference are described as part of a systematic pattern build on a…

This study is divided into two sections: the first examines Standard French indirect interrogation, noting several distinct verb classes which are discussed in terms of permutations of WH-words, reduction, multiple WH-words, cleavage, semantic compatibility, and the "que-" completive; the second part focuses on indirect interrogation and…

In the contemporary standard Warsaw Polish of educated Poles, there is evidence of a system of gender-marking whereby masculine-gender nouns are being substituted for feminine professional names, working titles and surnames. The current usage is attributed to the change of status of the modern woman, or, more precisely, to her increased…

Indian English is a variety of the English language used as a second language by Indian bilinguals. This paper reports on a computerized survey of the grammar of Indian English, consisting of the classification of 230 expressions "of whose standing there might be some question" by a group of linguists and teachers of English in India, in…

This paper attempts to dispel a number of misconceptions about the nature of meaning, namely that: (1) synonyms are words that have the same meanings, (2) antonyms are words that have opposite meanings, (3) homonyms are words that sound the same but have different spellings and meanings, (4) converses are antonyms rather than synonyms, (5)…

The concept of a speech community is investigated within the theoretical frameworks of sociology and linguistics, and it is concluded that the collective competence models of Ferdinand de Saussure and Noam Chomsky are inadequate. They fail in that they are limited as linguistic models which have consistently overlooked the sociological importance…

Bidialectal approaches to American public school teaching presume a relativistic view of language on the part of teachers, a requirement which has received little scrutiny since bidialectalism has become a predominant approach to divergent language in school settings. Evidence drawn from documents of the American teaching profession over the past…

The phenomenon of retroflexion is discussed, and its occurrence in about 150 selected languages is examined from a geographical and a diachronic point of view. The clustering of such languages into distinct areas has been explained through the postulation of a hypothesis regarding their development in language. After a detailed examination of four…

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"…

This article investigates a specific foreign language (FL) learning problem, the substitution of /s,z/ for English unvoiced and voiced "th" by native speakers of Egyptian Arabic, and concludes that the facts are better explained in terms of language transfer than by an explanation in terms of inherent difficulty independent of native…

Concerned with college students' written composition and their understanding of English grammar, usage, and mechanics, this book is based on the beliefs that society is clearly class structured, that representatives of all classes attend various kinds of colleges, that society is responsible for each of these students, and that this obligation…

This work seeks to fill important gaps existing in the study of Peninsular Arabic, especially that of the United Arab Emirates. It presents an explicit outline of the structure of Gulf Arabic, based on the dialect of Abu Dhabi. It is intended for students and teachers of Gulf Arabic, for linguists and dialectologists, and for other individuals who…

This article outlines the history and development of the substratum theory concerning Spanish in the Americas, the basic tenet of the theory being the role of indigenous languages in phonological changes in Spanish. (CLK)

Links between language and identity are so strong that attempts to correct nonstandard speech are likely to be interpreted by West Indian children as criticism or rejection. A far more constructive approach would be to acknowledge and accept Creole in the classroom. (Author)

Black students that were grouped for English ability by their standardized test scores translated a standard English text into black dialect. Analytical data show group differences in dialect facility that correlate to standard English ability, suggesting that language development affects both dialect performance and standard English learning. (RL)