An interactional sociolinguistic analysis of social and attitudinal factors in face to face encounters shows how such factors can affect the evaluation of human action and contribute to the maintenance of socioeconomic disadvantage among ethnic minorities. (Author/GC)

Recent directions in ethnographic study of classroom interaction are surveyed for the help they can give to an analysis of classroom language and conversation. Many studies emphasize that children's responses to school tasks are directly influenced by values learned at home and that these factors add to the complexity of communication in the…

Analyzes an Afro-American sermon and a disputed speech by a Black political leader to mixed audience. Dialect alternants signal switching between contrasting styles in both. Conversational inference is shown to depend not only on grammar, lexical meanings, and conversational principles, but also on constellations of speech variants, rhythm, and…

A number of studies on the acquisition of communicative competence (the ability to communicate effectively in natural social settings) in varying cultural and social settings are described. Languages covered are English, including urban Afro-American dialects; Samoan; Tzeltal, an Indian language of Southern Mexico; Luo of Kenya; and the Spanish of…

This issue includes four papers: (1) "Context in Children's Speech," by Jenny Cook-Gumperz and John J. Gumperz, demonstrates how context is used as a framing device for semantic interpretation of messages. It is suggested that context is not simply background information but part of the total message, entering into the information communicated,…

This paper reviews some recent research on the relationship of group processes and cultural milieux to choice of linguistic form and Its implications for problem solving in small (minority) groups. Basic to the discussion is the concept that language usage conveys important social information and is therefore not a matter of choice but must be…

This paper deals with the phenomenon of code switching among bilinguals. Whereas previous studies of code switching have, however, concentrated on instances in which code alternation can be correlated with a change in social occasion, this paper uses examples from the speech of Mexican-American and Afro-American bilinguals to focus on those…

This paper attempts to elucidate the relationship between linguistic form, interactional strategies and social meaning on the basis of a detailed study of a natural conversation. The investigation is based on a conversation recorded in an institution for Mexican immigrants by a linguist, a native American of Mexican ancestry, and program advisor…