Sociolinguistic variation (SLV) entails that language is affected by social context (i.e. register, pragmatics). Interest in the acquisition of sociolinguistic variation in a second language (L2-SLV), as a key component of communicative competence, has grown exponentially over the past thirty years (Geeslin & Long, 2014). Researchers have…

Language forecasting, i.e., predicting the future state of a language, has long been regarded with a fair amount of skepticism. This is partly due to language change often being considered sudden, random, unpredictable, and viewed as the result of complex interacting factors that are not well understood (e.g., Keller 1994:72; Bauer 1994:25; Labov…

Over the last 25 years, scholars have proposed several recommendations for including spoken grammar in second language classrooms. However, recent studies point to potential challenges in this endeavour: learners may feel inauthentic when using what they see as 'native-speaker' forms, and interlocutors may see these forms as less acceptable when…

American Norwegian (AmNo), a moribund heritage variety of Norwegian spoken predominantly in the Upper Midwest of the US, licenses "wh"-infinitives (i.e. indirect questions), which are structures that are not acceptable in either standard Norwegian Bokmål or Norwegian dialects. Adopting a spanning-account of syntax (Blix, 2021; Julien,…

Arguably the most critically-endangered language in the Philippines, Inagta Alabat (also known as Inagta Lopez and Inagta Villa Espina) is spoken by fewer than ten members of the small Agta community on the island of Alabat off the northern coast of Quezon Province on the large northern Philippine island of Luzon, and by an even smaller number of…

Linguistic plurality is a situation in which a speech community speaks more than one language. It is a complex sociolinguistic phenomenon that helps explain the complexity of human nature. Human beings cannot exist in isolation and are therefore inclined towards interaction and transaction. The need and desire to interact leads to language…

Purpose: Insights from linguistic variation research illustrate a linguistically diverse population, in which even speakers who can be classified as speaking a "mainstream" variety have grammatical knowledge of vernacular or "nonmainstream" features. However, there is a gap in our knowledge regarding how vernacular features are…

Learners must develop the ability to vary language according to linguistic and situational factors to produce context-appropriate utterances. Likewise, interpreting the additional meaning conveyed through language variation is essential for successful communication. Nevertheless, research on the interpretation of the variable copulas in Spanish is…

This paper explores the understanding and application of epicene pronouns in English among Chinese EFL learners. Thirty-three Chinese college students took part in a questionnaire to gauge their perceptions and usage of English epicene pronouns. A content analysis of 10 English grammar textbooks was also undertaken to discover current vernacular…

The current paper aims to search and summarise the current literature on the linguistic aspect of the Orang Asli languages in Malaysia. Following the PRISMA Statement (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses), a systematic review was conducted with a particular focus on three main groups of the Orang Asli in Peninsular…

In this paper, the author examines the reflection of social violence within the structure of the Arabic language through an analysis of classical Arabic grammar texts. The study's comprehensive examination of grammatical examples, rules, and terminologies reveals how the societal relationships and power dynamics of the era were embedded within the…

While monolingual English speakers acquire most pronouns by age 5, acquisition amid prevalent, normative code-mixing, such as in Trinidad, is underexplored. This study examines how Trinidadian 3- to 5-year-olds express third-person subject, object, reflexive and possessive pronouns and factors influencing pronoun choices. Seventy-five preschoolers…

An accurate portrayal of contemporary Spanish in Costa Rica necessitates the inclusion of a discussion of forms of address. Costa Rica is commonly listed among the countries that include "voseo" as part of its pronominal paradigm. The present descriptive study elucidates the sociolinguistic reality of "voseo" in Costa Rica and…

The current study investigates Spanish children's variation between the standard and non-standard forms for second person singular preterit --s ("caiste" [approximately equal to] "caístes"). All second person singular preterit forms were extracted from the spontaneous speech of 78 children in Spain and analyzed for the effects…

Haugen's model (in "Sociolinguistics," Penguin, Harmondsworth, pp 97-111, 1972 [1966]) of standardisation has been widely adopted in general histories of particular languages, not least because of its clarity and simplicity. In this article, I focus on its treatment of codification, with a view to suggesting refinements to this part of…