Cites examples of recent changes in language and suggests what forces are at work to produce language change. (DD)

Of the many Latin texts that provide views on language, and in particular on linguistic change and variation, Varro's "De Lingua Latina" and Gellius'"Noctes Atticae," provide good examples of the perspectives of the stoic philosopher and of the antiquarian philologist. Stoics suggest that language was created as perfect as…

Although courts are urging linguistic sensitivity, linguistic geographers and sociolinguists are providing evidence on linguistic variety. (RL)

Reports on an investigation into regionalism in Australian English, as evidenced in one type of source material, the regional newspaper. (Contains one reference.) (JL)

Explores problems involved in defining Black South African English, such as whether it is a new variety of English or a dialect and relating to whose English it is: the English of those learners who have encountered only a smattering of English in informal contexts or the variety of English acquired during formal schooling. (Author/VWL)

Argues that devoicing sites in Japanese are specified for the feature, departing from the traditional phonological analysis of Japanese vowel devoicing, which considers devoicing as an assimilation of the feature [+spread glottis]. (Author/VWL)

Focuses on the most important problem translators are faced with when translating Mark Twain's "Huckleberry Finn" into German: how can the speech of The African-American Jim be rendered? Examines both orthographic and other linguistic strategies that have been used to differentiate Jim's voice over the last hundred years. (Author/VWL)

Discusses research that demonstrates the theoretical and practical value of a dialect contact framewrk. Examines questions that can be addressed using the analytic and conceptual tools of this framework. (Author/VWL)

Reports an apparent time survey of the Fenland dialect of Eastern England that provides an example of a range of dialect contact processes reconfiguring variable patterns of past tense "be." (Author/VWL)

Discusses the role that Sociolinguistics should play with respect to the Ebonics debate in the United States. Argues that the fundamental perspective Sociolinguistics has taken with respect to this issue is sound, namely that Ebonics like any other linguistic variety is just as rule-governed and systematic. (Author/VWL)

Reviews the following books: "The Politics of Writing," (Romy Clark, Roz Ivanic); "Literacy in Society," (Ruqaiya Hasan, Geoff Williams); "Text, Role, and Context: Developing Academic Literacies" (Ann M. Johns); "Changing Literacies" by (Colin Lankshear with James Paul Gee, Michele Knobel, Chris Searle); and…

This paper presents a variety of initiatives in place in our College of World Englishes, and demonstrates how they differ from traditional approaches, and the reason we believe they will have a positive impact on the education and lives of our students. Nearing the end of our third year, we still have a long way to go in developing our program,…

This issue of "Bilingualism: Language and Cognition" is about convergence, a type of language change that is contact-induced and results in greater similarity between two languages that are in contact with each other. In Backus (forthcoming), I have attempted an overview of contact-induced language change, focusing on causal factors, on mechanisms…

To what extent does language acquisition recruit domain-general processing mechanisms? In this dissertation, evidence concerning this question is garnered from the study of individual differences in infant speech perception and their predictive value with respect to language development in early childhood. In the first experiment, variation in the…

This paper presents the results of a study investigating the impact of interactional feedback on interlanguage variation in terms of accuracy, complexity, and fluency of learners' discourse in performing tasks with familiar vs. unfamiliar topics. The participant of the study who were randomly assigned into an experimental and a control group were…