Examines current theories of language change, and proposes the theory that language change can be observed and captured while in progress, and that language change can be considered a manifestation of human change in general. (AM)

Investigates how teachers perceive the speech of school-aged children and whether the socioeconomic status or level of schooling of the students influences these perceptions. Findings suggest that teachers' judgments of what is problematic and their perception of what causes these problems may differ according to the socioeconomic status of their…

Revisits the classic debate on whether there can be an artificial creation that behaves and uses language with intelligence and agency. Argues that many moral and spiritual objections to this notion are not grounded either ethically or empirically. (Author/VWL)

Examines the supposed "Gender Paradox" proposed by Labov (1990, 2001), which suggests women are both sometimes conversative and sometimes innovative in terms of linguistic variation and change. Explores the paradox from two perspectives: its applicability to multilingual as opposed to multidialectal communities and whether it is…

Reviews previous work on phonological variation in American Sign Language (ASL) and examines issues that distinguish spoken languages. Presents an account of the data collection, reduction, and analysis, with an emphasis on issues particular to the analysis. Discusses implications of the results, including possible change in ASL. (Author/VWL)

Explores the relationship between lexicography and variation in both spoken languages and sign languages. Examines the function of dictionaries and discusses the nature of linguistic variation, using an example of lexical variation in American Sign Language. (Author/VWL)

Eight map task dialogs representative of general Australian English were coded for speaker turn and for dialog acts using a version of SWBD-DAMSL, a dialog act annotation scheme. High, low, simple, and complex rising tunes, and any corresponding dialog act codes were then compared. The Australian statement high rise (usually realized as a L…

Offers a glance at the changing set of languages that English is becoming. Considers how to respond to a need to teach in a world where the English of business is polymorphic. Presents seven suggestions to give educators a start. (SG)

A brief exploration of literacy in Thailand is provided, focusing on compensatory education and the major dialects of Thai. An 11-citation annotated bibliography and a 27-citation unannotated bibliography are included. (CB)

Examines recent lexical innovations in Nigerian English, focusing on loanshifts, ellipses, conversions, translation equivalents, analogical creations, and coinages. Various examples of each phenomenon are presented. (Contains three references.) (MDM)

Recent research has shown that sign language varieties in India and Pakistan are related. This report examines the possible relationship of sign language varieties in India and Pakistan to those in Nepal by analyzing comparative lexical data from sign language varieties in the three countries. (10 references) (VWL)

A study of utterances marked by exemplification particles ("par exemple, disons") in Montreal oral French attempted to describe constraints governing choice of discourse variant. Variables examined include position of particle in the utterance, extendibility and reality of the example, order of constituent elements in argumentation, and…

Using Biber's multidimensional analysis (1998) to examine a large corpus of world English literatures written in Indian, West African, British, Anglo-American, and Mexican-American varieties of English, examines whether quantitative analyses can also be insightful and useful in the examination of world Englishes literatures in expanding…

Investigated African American Vernacular English dialect features in the midwestern community of Davenport, Iowa, and compared them to those reported by Pollock and Berni (1997) for Memphis, Tennessee--specifically productions of vocalic and postvocalic /r/ across African-American speakers from Davenport and Memphis. (Author/VWL)

Describes a project whose purpose is to set up a computerized database of bilingual texts to be used by researchers in the field of language interaction (i.e., codeswitching, borrowing, and other outcomes of contact between varieties). Current work includes adaptation of the CHILDES system to take account of the different needs of researchers in…