This article will focus on sociolinguistic aspects in Terry Pratchett's "The Wee Free Men." In particular we will deal with the interplay of standard and non-standard British English by which the writer highlights cultural stereotypes as well as narrative ones; creating a children's tale with a distinctively adult-like character set.…

A sociolinguistic study of Ocracoke, an island community in North Carolina's Outer Banks, investigated the social dynamics of language change and variation. Data were gathered in interviews with 43 island residents aged 12-82, most of whose families have been on the island for several generations. Several major sociolinguistic issues were…

The manner in which English is being nativized in Europe is examined by focusing on German English. The recent historical development of the nativization of English in Germany and the attitudes that foster this practice are described. Among the topics addressed are: (1) the effects of the expansion of English use on the German language itself, (2)…

This paper discusses how to treat code-switching in translations. Examples include use of a word or phrase that is a common expression in the ordinary source language but comes from a related classical language (e.g., "terra nullius," a Latin phrase used in English, a word or expression borrowed from a dialect related to the source language (e.g.,…

One way to alleviate the hostile feelings of students whose dialects or idiolects interfere with their writing of Edited American English is to spend class time studying the differences between written and spoken English and examining the reasons such differences exist. The concept of a "grapholect," a national written language used by speakers of…

Current practices and materials for teaching English as a second language (ESL) contain oversimplifications about English based on the assumption of a uniform language type and standard of usage, presented to foreign learners for pedagogical clarity. ESL teachers may be aware of the language's diversity but are not prepared to provide…

A language attitude survey was conducted in Toronto in the winter of 1978 in which 457 people of various ages, social classes, geographical backgrounds, and of both sexes were asked to listen to 20 voices representing five varieties of English and to rate them on a series of character traits and on a socio-economic status scale. The purpose was to…

One concern in current sociolinguistic theories of language variation is to find dynamic models that integrate rules governing the 'lects' of a language into a unified description of that language. The dynamics of language change in the variations inherent to the Fijian dialect chain have profound implications for language literacy and educational…

Problems in the translation of Judeo-Spanish texts go beyond the problems normally associated with translation. Aside from near-native control of two languages, the translator must have knowledge of vocabulary that is not completely Spanish and an understanding of the unique orthographic history of the Judeo-Spanish dialect. There are Spanish…

Indian English is a variety of the English language used as a second language by Indian bilinguals. This paper reports on a computerized survey of the grammar of Indian English, consisting of the classification of 230 expressions "of whose standing there might be some question" by a group of linguists and teachers of English in India, in…

Bidialectal approaches to American public school teaching presume a relativistic view of language on the part of teachers, a requirement which has received little scrutiny since bidialectalism has become a predominant approach to divergent language in school settings. Evidence drawn from documents of the American teaching profession over the past…

This paper discusses difficulties in defining Standard American English, and the question of whether there is a need to define it. Several theories on why such a dialect should be defined are described. These are: the "propriety" theory, the "psychological" theory, the "power and prestige" theory, and the "better tool" theory, the "psychological"…

Two studies on the phonology of Spanish spoken by Cubans in the United States are critically analyzed. The studies are: "Markedness and a Cuban Dialect of Spanish," by Jorge M. Guitart, and "Some Theoretical Implications from Rapid Speech Phenomena in Miami-Cuban Spanish," by Robert M. Hammond. The methodologies of Hammond and Guitart are…

Numerous reasons can be cited by scholars concerning lexical problems that face anyone embarking upon such an enterprise as that of preparing a Basque-English dictionary. First, "euskera," a term given to this ancient tongue, is both written and spoken today as it was millennia ago. Second, Basque, as a result, has not been subjected to…

Drawing on phonological, grammatical, and usage data collected during personal interviews and taped sessions, this paper seeks to determine whether and how persons of Finnish descent, collectively or individually by generation, constitute dialect islands within the local dialect area (Marquette, Michigan), and their effect upon one another. The…