This paper investigates the treatment of Japanese speech levels and styles (known as "keigo") in previous studies and discusses the problems involved. An attempt is made to reconstruct the classification of speech levels and styles in modern colloquial Japanese. Speech styles change according to age, social status, sex, and the…

Among the Mexican American Dialects activity's concerns is the linguistic phenomena characterizing what has been termed Local Hispanicized English (LHE) and whether or not LHE has become an institutionalized dialect of American English. In order to answer whether LHE has characteristics distinguishing it from other Hispanicized forms of English…

Evidence is offered to support the view that linguistic competence cannot in principle be divorced from linguistic performance in order to abstract universal properties of grammars, that rules of grammar inevitably incorporate perceptual strategies and constraints, and that grammaticality and acceptability are related to predictability. A theory…

Cape Barren English is clearly the most aberrant dialect of English spoken in Australia. Descended from English sealers, whalers and ex-convicts and their Aboriginal wives, the inhabitants of Cape Barren Island, Tasmania, have lived in relative isolation for the last 150 years or more. Their dialect is not a creolized pidgin; it has a number of…

This paper examines language variation in terms of overdetermination and underdetermination of structural information as related to grammatical rules and the structure of social behavior. (CLK)

A number of studies are reviewed for the purpose of identifying the ways in which non-content aspects of speech elicit personality impressions. (RM)

Pronominal usage in spoken Bangkok Thai is described from a sociolinguistic point of view. Two phonological variants are indicated: one when a variant occurs in isolation and the other in natural speech. These two types of phonological variation generally are marked by different tones. (Author/RM)

Discusses the implications for the preparation of instructional materials in the United States of the language changes that have taken place in China since the Liberation. (CLK)

Describes an experimental intersession program in which American undergraduates were taught Quebec French in Quebec. (AM)

It is illustrated that Spanish has influenced Sayula Popoluca lexicon, phonology, and grammar. The article focuses on the phonological changes in the language caused by the Spanish influence. (NCR)

Presents a case study in which the use of intricate varieties of levels of honorifics in Japanese is more complicated than traditional sociolinguistics has shown. The buraku (Japanese barrio) treated here is situated in the west part of Honshu, Japan, and consists of 13 households. (CHK)

Observations on the situation of Provencal based on a study of inhabitants of a small town in Provence. A situation leading to abandonment of a language is described. It is indicated that the dissociation of all defining elements of a language corresponds to the process of abandonment of the language. (AMH)

Among British deaf adults there are at least two varieties of Sign Language in use. The structure and functions of sign language in the deaf community at Reading are examined to consider whether the British deaf community might be diglossic. The process used is described and references are included. (AMH)

Evaluates the extent to which political self-interest motivates Chinese scholars who oppose the work of the Chinese Communist Party's Committee for Writing Reform. Concludes that those opposed to writing reform are wrongfully using the issue to incite intellectuals to oppose the Communist Party and the Chinese government. (Author/DB)

Attempts to classify the differences between Quebec French and Standard French, and contrasts arguments in favor of integrating Quebec French with the Standard with arguments in favor of maintaining lexical separation. (Text is in French.) (CDSH/CLK)