A collection of papers addresses three aspects of the learning and use of French as a second language in Africa. The first two chapters look at the sociolinguistic dimension; the first examines the language question and language consciousness in parts of Africa where French was once or is still used as an official or "second" language.…

A study compared language patterns in a group of 100 residents of Ottawa and 240 residents of Vancouver, categorized by sex, age (under or over 40), and socioeconomic status. The informants provided tape-recorded interviews of an hour or more in response to similarly-conducted questionnaires designed to elicit tokens for a large number of…

The volume represents in microcosm the sort of faculty-trainee-student interaction that is a priority at the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) at the University of North Dakota. Seven studies by faculty and students of SIL include the following: "Lexical Variation in Mexican Sign Language" (J. Albert Bickford); "Reflexives in…

A study investigated how and why code switching and mixing occurs between English and Afrikaans in a region of South Africa. In District Six, non-standard Afrikaans seems to be a mixed code, and it is unclear whether non-standard English is a mixed code. Consequently, it is unclear when codes are being switched or mixed. The analysis looks at…

This study examines the comprehensibility of Chinese, Japanese, and Hawaiian English by listeners whose native languages are Cantonese, Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, and Hawaiian English. The subjects, 30 college students, were grouped according to whether they listened to male or female speakers. Results show native speakers are better at…

Following its independence from France in 1956, Morocco declared Arabic its official language. Successive policies of Arabization have been devised with the aim of ultimately converting French language domains into Arabic ones. However, there are two kinds of problems with the way the Moroccan language situation has been described and analyzed for…

Although spoken language was the subject of attention among Soviet linguists for a short period in the 1920s, it has not attracted much attention since then. The main concern of Soviet linguists has been the forms of written language. Only at the end of the 1960s did linguists begin to record spontaneous speech on tape and study its forms. The…

An examination of the place of American English in the research of William Dwight Whitney and Leonard Bloomfield focuses on the divergence of their approaches to language. A review of their works looks at the way in which Whitney's interest in American English complemented his other strong interests (the social and political setting for language…

A discussion of the field of applied linguistics defines the scope of the discipline, outlines some of the regular publications and activities within it, and looks at four examples of its role in the field of education: language planning, refugee and immigrant issues, dialect issues, and varieties of English. It is emphasized that in these and…

Emphasizing language as both medium and object of instruction, the articles in this focused journal issue promote the interaction of students' language and teachers' language as a means to increased student awareness of, and facility with, language. The first three articles provide a context, methodology, and evaluation framework for language…

This book contains essays which focus on the systems of communication that operate within and between various social segments of Afro-American communities in the United States. The essays are presented under the following headings: (1) "Getting Into It: Black Talk, Black Life and the Academic," (2) "'Talking My Talk': Black Talk Varieties and…

The nature of the relationship between linguistic expression and thought has been a source of controversy in linguistics and psychology. This relationship should be considered one of mutual influence and subject to change. An example of this interrelationship can be found in the process of alteration and assimilation that Indian Buddhist thought…

In the transmission of a language from one generation to another, the specific role of the family is not clear. There is evidence that in cities parents have less influence on a child's vernacular than playmates do; in rural areas, members of the nuclear family might be the major source of language change and stability, if the people with whom…

The present study concentrated on the writing vocabulary of Mexican American children (grades 1-8) in order to answer the following questions: (1) Are there regional differences in the writing vocabulary of Mexican American Children? (2) Is one justified in translating directly from English into Spanish? (3) Is there a need for the development of…

This study is an examination of the interactional language of a teacher from United States mainstream culture and three male students, one each from Appalachian culture, black inner-city culture, and mainstream culture, during first grade literacy instruction. In this cultures-in-contact situation provided in an urban school in the northeastern…