The variable usage of Negative Incorporation as a phonological process in French Sign Language (FSL) and as a grammatical process in American Sign Language (ASL) is described. In addition, the historical continuum between FSL and ASL despite heavy restructuring is shown. (HP)

Analyzes argumentative talk as a sociable function among some ethnic groups. Even though speakers repeatedly disagree, remain nonaligned with each other, and compete for interactional goods, they do so in a nonserious way, and in ways which actually display their solidarity and protect their intimacy. The cultural relativity of norms of evaluation…

Research supported by a grant from the Canada Council; expanded version of a paper presented at the Annual Conference of the British Psychological Society, Nottingham, England, April 1972. (DD)

Original version of this paper presented at the Conference of the 7th World Congress of Sociology, Varna, Bulgaria, September 1970. (VM)

Examines Kamsa ritual language and describes a model (based on accessibility, formalization, and efficacy) for specifying its semiotic constitution. (EKN)

Investigation and comparison of telephone behavior, and the attitudes and values attached to telephone usage in England and Greece, from the perspective of an interaction model. Results revealed cultural differences in responses to making telephone calls, verifying numbers and speakers, and apologies for wrong numbers or disturbing calls.…

Presents a systematic investigation of the factors underlying the choice of personal reference. Five experiments examine how native-English-speaking undergraduates of Brown University refer to a professor or student in various situations. The Rule of Polite Reference (RPR) explains how speakers choose the way they will refer to a person in a given…

This paper considers two classes of conversational errors: production errors and interactional errors. It is proposed that error correction can be used to invoke alternatives to concepts of persons, situation and relationships. (CK)

The ecological vocabulary of the Bella Coola Indians contains more loanwords than native forms. Borrowings are highly selective, mainly from the Wakashan. This is explained by cultural affinity. (CK)

Narratives from part-Hawaiian children 5 to 12 years old in a variety of circumstances were collected for several years. Typical verbal routines, ways of analyzing the data, tendency of routines to structure speech events, functions of nonnarrative routines in narrative performance, and establishing a context for narration are considered. (EJS)

Briefly explores the role of the elderly in sociolinguistic theory and research. It is determined that speech accommodation theory is a profitable framework for elucidating the sociolinguistic mechanics of and the social psychological processes underlying intergenerational encounters. (Author/CB)

Claims that folk names of speech acts and speech genres are culture-specific and that a rigorous semantic analysis of such names, expressed in a culture-independent semantic metalanguage, can provide an important insight into communicative routines most characteristic of a given society. (SED)

Discusses speech styles and social structures in Ilongot discourse. (DD)

Work supported in part by a Social Science Research Council research fellowship to R. L. Cooper. (VM)

Examines the organization and function of information-withholding sequences, a conversational strategy used by participants in gossip interaction on Nukulaelae, a Polynesian Central Pacific atoll. Withholding sequences illustrate how ambiguity and repairs can be exploited to meet the communicative demands of particular interactional contexts. (62…