A study investigated 42 native English-speakers' (NSs) perceptions of the pragmatic appropriateness of refusal statements. The NSs rated the appropriateness of 24 written statements in 4 different refusal scenarios, which were collected from both native speakers and non-native speakers. Four weeks later, as a reliability check, the subjects rated…

A study investigated the evolution of the use of "devil" (or as it is often spelled to represent the vernacular, divil) as part of a negation "Divil a one" (= "not a one") in Irish and Hiberno-English and traces the influence of language contact in this history. While it is found that multiple causes resulted in the…

In this paper, the multilateral comparison method of classifying languages is described and analyzed. It is suggested that while it is espoused as a simple and reasonable approach to language classification, the method has serious flaws. "Multilateral" or "mass" comparison (MC) is not a method of genetic language…

A study examined internal structure of the Discourse Completion Test (DCT), a technique used to elicit data in sociolinguistic research, and effects of systematic modification to its situational prompt on subject response. The DCT is a questionnaire containing situations, briefly described, designed to elicit a particular speech act. Subjects read…

A report of research on phonology consists of two parts. The first examines the direction in which syllables are "built"--whether the segment or the syllable came first. The first part looks at the effects that different forms of syllabification have on syllable structure, and explores which syllable structure accounts for most…

Analysis of a form of Burushaski, spoken in northern Pakistan, uses Relational Grammar (RG), targeting grammatical relations at different strata in a clause, to account for a wide range of verb agreement and case marking phenomena. It is found that the RG notions of unaccusative and unergative are sufficient to characterize the two major groupings…

One dialect of Yi spoken in Meigu County in the southern part of China's Sichuan Province is analyzed for its tone patterns, based on data provided by a bilingual native speaker. Consonant and vowel inventories are provided. Three contrastive tones are found. One has three allophones, which are conditioned by the preceding tone. Tonal allophony is…

Drawing data from audiotaped lessons with 10 native-speaker English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) teachers and 12 EFL learners of varied linguistic backgrounds, a study explored some of the ways in which classroom talk by learners is collaboratively built to repair errors, misunderstandings, and non-communication. Focus is on both explicit and…

A study investigated the realization of voicing contrasts ("breathiness") in plosive consonants produced by young French adults, particularly as they differ in males and females. Data came from acoustic analysis of recordings of nine informants reading lists of monosyllabic words with initial plosive consonants in isolation and in the content,…

Papers on semantic theory and research include: "Presupposition, Congruence, and Adverbs of Quantification" (Mike Calcagno); "A Unified Account of '(Ta)myen'-Conditionals in Korean" (Chan Chung); "Spanish 'imperfecto' and 'preterito': Truth Conditions and Aktionsart Effects in a Situation Semantics" (Alicia Cipria,…

Two papers on linguistic theory are presented. The first examines the relationship between two subsystems of Danish grammar: (1) the morphology and meaning of the two passives (a morphological passive and a periphrastic passive); and (2) the word order rules and meanings attached to indefinite subjects, irrespective of voice. It is claimed that…

A study explored the implications of a rhetorical approach to professional education in business--specifically, how a social constructivist view of language might change how students learn concepts and theories of business. It focused on undergraduate education in management, with data drawn from a case study of a student in a pilot version of an…

A study compared the influence of two forms of discourse completion test (DCT) on the elicitation of rejection of advice. An open questionnaire providing scenarios alone was compared with a classic dialogue completion task in which a conversational turn is provided. The tasks were given to 32 graduate students, 19 native and 13 non-native…

The study examines origins of the usage patterns of "be" forms (conjugated and invariant forms of the copula) in Black English as they developed over a period of about 30 years. The corpus studied consists of selected interviews from a collection of recordings about Hoodoo, conjuration, witchcraft, and rootwork made by a white priest with almost…

This discussion of the speech act of thanking looks at the basic functions of the act and responses to it in American English. It is argued that in general, "thank you" expressions are used to express appreciation of benefits and to enhance rapport between interlocutors, and that this basic use is extended to the functions of conversational…