Studies the quotative system of contemporary British and Canadian youth. Multivariate analysis of nearly 1300 quotative verbs demonstrates that the innovative form "be like" is productive in both Canada and Britain. Traditional quotatives such as "say,""go,""think" are used according to somewhat different…

Syntactical rule differences in black dialect that can be more helpful to young adolescents' perceptions than the corresponding rules in standard English were studied. The syntactical rule in black dialect that was identified as being more explicit than the corresponding rule in standard English was the invariant "be" verb form (as in…

Two papers address different issues in linguistic theory. "Attitudes, Norms and Standardization in English: Some Aspects of the Language In Its Social Context," by Bent Preisler, looks at how attitudes affect language norms and ultimately, standardization in British and U.S. English. It begins with the attitudes and communicative…