Consideration of the use of Panjabi by British Black adolescents and White adolescents in a mixed peer group, analyzing contexts of Panjabi occurrence and crossing, showed that Panjabi was important in managing the divisions that cross-cut youth community and in extending horizons beyond the confines of local neighborhood experience. (31…

Grice's analysis of conversational maxims and implications is examined in the light of Malagasy language and ways of speaking. A cultural contrast in primary assumptions is described. (Author/RM)

Discusses language shift in one community from German-Hungarian bilingualism to the exclusive use of German. Young women are further along in this direction than others. The linguistic contrast is shown to represent the social dichotomy between a newly available worker status and traditional peasant status. (Author/RM)

Describes research in which 28 black parents and community people were polled as to their attitudes toward vernacular and standard Black English. Attitudes were assessed in four domains--school, home, community and playground--and in four channels--reading, speaking, writing and listening. Standard Black English was preferred in all domains and…

Four hypotheses explaining the origin of Berbice Dutch, a Dutch-based Creole language spoken in the county of Berbice in Guyana, are explored. The most likely explanation is that the language was first spoken by Berbice slaves as a means of expressing the identity of a newly created "ethnic" group. (Author/CB)

Describes a study in which participants from five areas in the U.S. converted hand-drawn maps into generalized maps of their perceptions of dialect areas. The maps are compared with one another, with traditional maps of U.S. dialect areas, and with maps of cultural and regional zones of the U.S. (Author/SED)

The vocative use of the Chinese term of address "tongzhi" ("comrade"), is analyzed. It was found that in its unmarked form it is a neutral term, but marked, its use becomes a negotiation to change the social distance between speaker and addressee, possibly explaining how certain such structures evolve and are maintained. (MSE)

The use of interpersonal verbal routines such as greetings and thanks is examined as a universal phenomenon of human languages. Examples from Syrian Arabic, American English and other languages are used to show differing patterns of structure and use, susceptible of grammatical and sociolinguistic analysis. (Author/RM)

Analysis of college students' interpretation of sex-indefinite paragraphs using the generic he, he or she, or they found that men, regardless of pronoun and their personal use of gender-indefinite pronouns, interpreted more male and fewer female referents than women. (64 references) (Author/CB)

Analysis of phonological data from two Athapaskan languages demonstrated that underlying the apparent degeneration of their phonological systems was an orderly progression which could be viewed as a retarded process of language acquisition, indicating that dying languages mirror the successive stages of ontogenesis. (35 references) (Author/CB)

Examines strikingly parallel claims concerning Japanese communication strategies, and female communication strategies in the West. Miscommunication between Japan and the West resembles miscommunication between the sexes in the West, suggesting not that Japanese linguistic behavior is not feminine but that it is indicative of the problems inherent…

Examination of the West German language and society suggests that the notion that the West German indigenous working class is separated from the middle class by a linguistic barrier is invalid. (Author/CB)

Documents attitudes toward English, Spanish, and Spanish-English code-switching in Juarez, Mexico. This paper refutes the notion that there are two orientations--integrative and instrumental--toward English as a second language, but it supports assumptions regarding the relationship between attitudes and use and the impact of local milieu on…

A comparative study of two Hispanic communities in New York City focused on how social status and ethnic configuration affect linguistic and attitudinal behaviors. Differences in language proficiency, use, and attitude among Central Americans, Cubans, Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, and South Americans were found, and the Dominicans in the two…