Suggests the possibility of mapping each person's linguistic identity in two dimensions: the number of languages spoken and the situation-specific variants of each language. Discusses the academic disadvantages associated with particular socioeconomic variants, particularly low-class speech/accents. Advocates greater tolerance of variation and…

Argues that in Europe over several centuries, the relationship between democracy and language policy in multilingual countries has been complex, noting that Catalan has thrived in democratic periods where devolution has advanced, and the causes of most problems facing Catalan are nonlinguistic. The paper examines language and democracy, language…

Derisive attitudes towards Spanish in the United States threaten its survival. Four issues vital to the preservation of Spanish in the United States are examined: the arbitrary nature of linguistic prejudice, the linguistic validity of all dialects, the overwhelming linguistic overlap between nonstandard and standard dialects of Spanish, and the…

The role of local attitudes in recent orthographic reform in Kope is examined. The previous Kope orthographic tradition is outlined, and two areas apparently requiring reform (nasal/fricative variation and vowel clusters versus semivowels). The concerns and the greater awareness among the locals regarding these orthographic changes are explored.…

An investigation was conducted by students in a linguistics seminar which had two parts, a matched-guise questionnaire and a semantic differential questionnaire. The content and results of the latter are presented here. The objective of this part of the study was to determine what attitudes French-speaking Swiss students had toward languages they…

Research has demonstrated that many linguistic features correlate with social stratification of speakers and that these features often serve as social identifiers that trigger language stereotypes. An experiment was conducted to verify these findings with regard to Portuguese ethnic groups. Judges from four Portuguese-speaking ethnic groups…

Two experiments, based on the semantic differential technique, were designed to measure the tolerance level of bilingually marked English in a functional bilingual's speech. In the first experiment, marked syntactic cues were rated by different groups of judges as generally indicative of non-bilingualism, although on the whole they were not…

This paper reports on the Arkansas Language Survey, which had two purposes: (1) to explore the idea advanced by Labov that Americans generally have negative attitudes about their language, and to see to what extent this applies to Arkansawyers; and (2) to determine how Arkansawyers judge the way other Americans speak English. The twenty-four white…

Traces the history of sociolinguistic studies in West Germany from the early nineteenth century with Humboldt and reports on the state and purposes of sociolinguistic studies in present-day Federal Republic of Germany. Available from Liber Laeromedel, Box 1205, S-22105 Lund, Sweden (Text is in German.) (TL)

This paper traces the history of changing attitudes toward American English. Two approaches to language policy have always been present, the conservative one, which considers British English the only acceptable standard, and the liberal, which favors American English. (CFM)

Relations between various measures of attitudes toward self, the native language group, the target language group, reasons for learning ESL, reasons for traveling to the U.S. and attained proficiency in ESL were investigated. Attitudes toward self and the native language group were positively correlated with attained proficiency in ESL. (CHK)

Anglo-Australians remain monolingual and Anglophile in their attitudes. They show preference for standard or prestige varieties of English. Second generation members of immigrant groups are under strong pressure to assimilate and to abandon their community languages. They may have more negative attitudes toward non-standard accents in English than…

Presents issues related to power and politics of the English language specifically in relation to the unprecedented global spread of the language. Several linguistic and nonlinguistic perspectives used to conceptualize the relationship between language and power are considered. (Author/CB)

Discusses the language and linguistic transformation of Hawaii, viewing language as socially constitutive, creative, and recreative and pointing out similarities between the language transformation and the Western penetration of Hawaii. (Author/CB)

Reports on research investigating nonreciprocity of address to female teachers in secondary schools in Catania, Sicily, where male teachers were always addressed with their academic, professional titles (which have great, overt prestige in southern Italy) and women were frequently addressed as "signora" or "signorina" in the…