This article describes five political scientists' interview-based accounts of appropriate and inappropriate use of the pronouns "I" and "we" in academic writing. The informants talked about pronoun use with reference to one of their own journal articles and also by referring to other informants' texts. Beliefs about appropriate…

This journal article focuses on the return of grammar in composition teaching. After about 2 decades of virtual banishment from the higher reaches of English teaching theory, grammar has returned as a subject of serious discussion. This is the result in part of a new assertiveness by a group of people who never lost interest in grammar as part of…

This issue of "Exploring," is devoted primarily to examination of alphabets and the languages they represent. Major articles include: "Shrinking the Alphabet" (Pat Murphy), a comparison of alphabet composition for different languages; "The Puzzle of Linear B" (Paul Doherty), a history of archaeologists' deciphering of an early form of written…

The grammatical phenomenon in Japanese known as Ga-No conversion is examined. In this phenomenon, the nominative particle "ga" can be converted to genitive particle "no" in embedded sentences with a nominal head such as a relative clause or complementary clause. A pragmatic constraint to this conversion that has not previously been explored is…

An analysis of the status of Anglo-Nigerian Pidgin (ANP) looks at its origins and evolution in Nigerian history, its location in the Nigerian language situation, and its current sociolinguistic status. It is concluded that ANP possesses linguistic structures that have stabilized enough to give the speaker an impression of good and bad grammar.…

The guide to "false friends," or false cognates, in German and English is designed such that it can be used as either an instructional tool or a reference guide. An introductory section defines false friends and discusses different types, and provides a set of symbols for distinguishing them. The first major section lists, alphabetically…

The second guide to "false friends," or false cognates, in German and English lists and discusses more difficult terms than the first guide. An introductory section defines false friends and discusses different types, and provides a set of symbols for distinguishing them. The first major section lists, alphabetically in German, and…

The dictionary of stems, roots, and affixes for the Blackfoot language provides, for each entry, information on the item's morphological type (e.g., noun stem, verb stem, root), subclassification if relevant, English index, and certain diagnostic inflectional forms (full words or sentences), each with an English translation. In addition, entries…

The linguistic situation of Yoruba is described briefly and the origins of Arabic influence on the language are examined. It is noted that Arabic influences Yoruba mainly through Hausa, and four basic conditions results from adaptation of Arabic phonemes in Yoruba: (1) the consonant, which does not exist in Yoruba, is dropped without replacement;…

A study investigated how a television talk show host manipulates the social and psychological distances in the television show context to entertain guests and audience. An ethnographic approach was taken to the research, and analysis focused on the use of politeness strategies and face-saving and face-threatening interactions. The television talk…

A study of second language acquisition focuses on the transition from formulaic to creative speech patterns. Subjects were two native Japanese-speaking children, aged 4 and 8, learning English as a Second Language in New York, observed over a period of 2 years. The nature of formulaic speech is discussed, drawing from research on such speech and…

Analysis of the Korean verb "na-ka-ta" ("to get out, exit") focuses on why an expression such as "kyengkicang-ey na-ka-ta" ("someone goes out/in to the sports arena") is acceptable only in the context that the person's entering the arena is for the purpose of a contest, while it becomes semantically…

A study of Chinese logograph recognition investigated: (1) whether word-length effect is generalizable to Chinese readers in recognizing context-free logographic characters; (2) whether readers from mainland China would outperform readers from Taiwan when each group read its own familiar logograph version; (3) whether both groups would perform…

A study investigated the existence of a definite article in Montagnais, an Algonquian language spoken by about 6,000 Canada natives. The language has not yet been totally described, and teachers, who must create their own instructional materials for Montagnais language instruction, are unsure as to whether to teach their own usage or what they are…

In Quebec French, unlike standard French, sentence negation "pas" ("not") can occur in the same clause as a negative quantifier like "personne" ("nobody"), for instance. This paper proposes that "pas" in these contexts marks negative association in the same way that "ne" does in standard…