Conversations are cooperatively achieved speech events. In introducing a new topic, there are specific procedures followed to close the old topic. Because these procedures take place over a series of utterances, both/all participants must cooperate to close a topic. Analysis of conversations among adults who know each other suggests that there are…

Contrasts Japanese language habits with Western language habits, asserting that Japanese need to speak more concisely, express themselves clearly and frankly, and eliminate superfluous polite language and preliminaries in order to be successful in the efficiency-oriented civilization that is a product of Western culture. (RAE)

Offers an appreciation of the work of Ring Lardner, and especially of his humorous use of the vernacular. Laments that so much of Lardner's writing is no longer in print. (RBW)

A discussion of women's oral discourse patterns focuses on the uses made of minimal responses, hedges, and tag questions. The analysis draws on transcriptions of conversations among a group of women friends over a period of months. It is proposed that the conventional treatment of these forms as "weak" is inappropriate in all-female…

Claiming that understanding the social context in which words are formed is necessary to appreciate the richness and vitality of language, this book presents an informal, discursive examination of how and why American speech came to be the way it is, and in particular where the words came from. The book follows a roughly chronological format from…

Two major theories trace the origins of black English to African influence or British Isles influence. According to the African origin theory, black English was created through pidginization, creolization, and decreolization as Africans came into contact with Europeans through the slave trade. The second theory holds that most black English…

Analyzes the oral language patterns of students from working class backgrounds, revealing a preference for practical efficiency of communication over grammatical correctness or precision. By school standards, their spoken narrations are confused, incoherent, and incorrect, leading to cultural misunderstandings, mutual incomprehension, and…

This paper draws from a number of sources, from Muhammad Ali to TV commercials, to demonstrate the quite different conceptions that black and white Americans have of the meaning of boasting and bragging. For blacks, boasting and bragging are two distinct ways of speaking and communication. Boasting is a joking, playful verbal bahavior, not to be…