The possibility should be considered that English grammar has been misanalyzed for centuries because of grammarians' accepting fundamentally flawed assumptions about grammar and, even more so, about the history of English--and that this has resulted in a huge disconnect between English grammars and the genius of English that really exists. The…

Two of the most stigmatized languages in the United States today are African American dialect and Appalachian English dialect. The attitudes many hold about Appalachia have come from the literature written about the place, the people, the cultural life of the mountain region, in general, and the spoken dialect. Arnow's "The Dollmaker,"…

Elaborates on an earlier work that shows how the relaxation of certain grammatical constraints provides clues to variation in language usage. Demonstrates how style shifting may contribute to variation. (NCR)

Sketches the history of the Scots language and the political and social history of Scotland, following with a description of the dialect, including its differences from standard English in phonology and vocabulary, and in the area of sociolinguistics. Some thoughts about the possible future of the dialect are added. (IFS/WGA)

In New Zealand, interest in the local variety of English is increasing. Reasons for this are given. A brief survey is made of: semantic changes, the role of Maori words, neologisms and phonetic changes. Parallels are shown with the history of British English. (IFS/WGA)

Discusses the nature of the difference between dialectology and sociolinguistics and suggests that the findings of dialectology are relevant for use by sociolinguists. (30 references) (CK)

Notes that contemporary French contains a number of nouns of double or doubtful gender. Suggests that non-standard usage is especially prone to fluctuation and that mysterious, contradicting established patterns in expressing noun gender are extant. The question of zero gender and neutralization is raised. (49 references) (Author/CK)

Variation among tokens of enumeration in Montreal French are studied to explain how the constitutive processes interact in terms of Slobin's (1977) charges to language: be clear, processible in real time, quick and easy, and expressive. The contributions of six structural factors or processes to the fulfillment of these charges are examined.…

The formal features of the prebasilectal variety of South African Indian English spoken by descendants of Indian immigrants who came to work in Natal, South Africa, is examined. It is suggested that some, but not all, language features were derived from what is termed as Butler English in India. (15 references) (Author/CB)

Examines the concept of indigenized Englishes and compares them with pidgins and creoles, focusing on attitudes about indigenized English, creative aspects of indigenized English, substratum influences, and universals. (Author/CB)

A discussion of changes in popular expressions and their relationship to cultural and ideological change looks at the emergence and borrowing of the term "cocooning" and several other morphological trends. (MSE)

Explores the social relation between a natural sign language and the language of the dominant hearing culture, focusing on language attitudes, status and affiliation, language contact influence, language variation and change, and language standardization. (58 references) (CB)

This paper discusses the biological and social views of grammar with reference to recent research on grammar and language acquisition, arguing that grammars are individual constructs existing in the minds of individual speakers. Contains 24 references. (MDM)

In a response to Philip Carr's discussion of the status of character of the Scottish Vowel-Length Rule (SVLR), this paper presents a proposal concerning the status of stem and base variation conditioned purely by morphological categories. It suggests that SVLR is precyclic only and non-structure changing. (Contains 19 references.) (LB)

Explores the role of Connected Speech Processes (CSP) in accounting for sociolinguistically significant dimensions of speech variation, and presents initial findings on the distribution of CSPs in the speech of Australian adolescents. The data were gathered as part of a wider survey of speech of Brisbane school children. (Contains 26 references.)…