Presents a method of quantifying the rate of a given change in a language during a specific time period. (Author/RM)

Discusses ethnic-social variation in American Sign Language among black signers in Georgia. Some of the lexical and formational (phonological) variation observed in old and young signers is discussed. (Author/RM)

Takes the position that the use of creole and English varieties in Guyana is socially motivated. Examines the linguistic behavior of nine groups of individuals from three communities within a theoretical framework proposed by LePage. The framework shows these groups, and the individuals, exploiting the codal resources of their society to their…

Addresses the relevance of a functional approach to the study of speech genres. Discusses the variation factors that can explain and partly predict spontaneous performances of a traditional genre of Samoan speechmaking. (EKN)

Discusses the factors that led to linguists being able to present effective testimony in the form of an unified view on the origins and structural characteristics of the Black English vernacular at the Ann Arbor trial. (EKN)

Provides a sociolinguistic account of the forms of address used in present-day Iranian Persian. The shift from power to solidarity as a result of the Islamic Revolution has resulted in a sociolinguistic simplification of address forms. (Author/CB)

The purpose of the model is to select either Spanish or English as the language to be used; its goals at this stage of development include modeling code-switching for lexical need, apparently random code-switching, dependency of code-switching upon sociolinguistic context, and code-switching within syntactic constraints. (EJS)

Ferguson's concept of diglossia and its later extension and coupling with bilingualism is developed further into the concept of polyglossia with multilingualism by a discussion of various speech communities where these phenomena are in evidence. (Author/HP)

Tests Ervin-Tripps's hypotheses concerning the relationship between several social and ecological factors and the choice of directive variants in English, using as a sample a predominantly Black male migratory agricultural labor population. Found that most of the predictions derived from Ervin-Tripp's model for these directive variants were…

Discusses glosses, that is, formulations which, on their occurrence, are adequate but which turn out to have been incomplete, ambiguous and perhaps misleading. Examines the ways in which a coparticipant's activities may result in a speaker either maintaining or revealing the gloss. (SED)

Investigates performance of the highly constrained Hallowe'en "trick or treat" routine in 115 children from 2 to 16 years of age. Changes in competence and role of parental input are examined in relation to cognitive and social factors. (Author/RM)

Discusses the Ilongots and their attitudes toward speech. Describes speech act theory, while questioning some aspects of it. Shows how the theory applies to Ilongot speech. (EKN)

A critical examination of the findings of Valentine (1985; 1986), studies devoted to cross-sex communication in Hindi and Indian English, is shown to reveal that the assumptions of the models on which such descriptions are based are not only nonexplanatory but also untenable. (20 references) (GLR)

In an investigation of the use of the word "hey" in pseudoquotations, invented quotations, in current English communication, tokens (n=26) were collected from public and commercial broadcasts and miscellaneous readings. A speaker uses quote formula + hey + pseudoquotation to dramatize and give emphasis to an important point. (72…

Describes the social situations and attitudes of speakers of Dyirbal in addition to changing language identifications, and reports on Dyirbal contract in lexical and grammatical complexity as it has moved toward an inevitable extinction. (11 references) (GLR)