The present article compares and contrasts linguistic findings from longitudinal studies of low-income Americans derived from evidence of recorded family speech interactions. Hart and Risley (1995) employed research assistants who spent 1 hour per month observing language usage among families from different socioeconomic backgrounds in their homes…

The experiment reported in this document extended the study by Milburn and Bell (1969) of English word frequencies. Specifically, this experiment examined the influence of instructional set on the relationship between affect and frequency estimates, with a distinction between personal and nationwide norms. The experiment design provided for two…

This study is a critical, analytic, and historical survey of the development of the American English dictionary from its beginning in 1798 until the publication of the Webster-Mahn dictionary in 1864. The survey is divided historically into three sections: (1) the British influence upon early American dictionaries, pre-Websterian American…

Based on the 1979 edition of the "Petit Larousse Illustre," English or American loan words are evaluated as to their actual usage in modern French. It is concluded that anglo-americanisms have a greater impact on technical French than on everyday French. A list of 57 words that have become part of French usage is provided for pedagogical…

Examines the syntactic aspects of affixation and compounding, processes accounting for the great majority of new word formations documented in "6,000 Words" (1976). (AM)

This report is intended as a preliminary survey of the problems in the collection and sociological analysis of student slang. Dealing with the notion that every speaker handles a variety of registers and tends to choose among them in accordance with the particular social situation in which he finds himself, this study isolates some of the…

The reduction of existing lexical items to shorter forms has generally been discussed under the headings of "acronyms,""back-formations," and "clippings." Two kinds of acronym are found, the letter-naming type (e.g. FBI, YMCA) and the letter-sounding type (e.g. UNESCO, CARE). The latter type must be pronounceable within the phonotactic norms of…

This Aklanon-English dictionary consists of a list of basic root words or word bases of Aklanon. The dictionary is designed to be used both by native speakers of Aklanon and by foreign learners. For the former, it can serve to: (1) establish a uniform system of spelling, (2) broaden or intensify the use and understanding of idiomatic standard…

This questionnaire presents about 450 phonological, lexical, and grammatical items that are used in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. In composing the dialect survey, terms pertaining to climate, topography, and ethnic groups were taken into account, as were other words and phrases which might be used by Upper Peninsula native speakers. The survey…

This paper examines negative incorporation in various lects of two historically related sign languages, French Sign Language and American Sign Language. Negative incorporation not only offers interesting insights into the structure of French and American Sign Language, but also into the descriptive and explanatory power of variation theory. By…

A study was undertaken "to determine the extent and nature of change, if any, in the speech of two New England communities" since the fieldwork for the "Linguistic Atlas of New England" (LANE) was completed in 1932. Two rural communities, Granby and Deerfield, Massachusetts, were re-visited in order to interview the same three…

This paper points out some linguistic and stylistic features of Black English as spoken by children and discusses the occurrence of particular language patterns. Examples of distinct intonation patterns, paralinguistic effects, language rhythm, and other phonological features are all considered. A statistical survey of particular age-group usage…

This bibliography lists approximately 200 books and articles on the subject of Black English for practical use by students interested in linguistic analysis and by educators. The listing is divided into seven sections: Linguistic Analysis--Linguistics and Culture; Lexicons, Word Lists, Glossaries; Vocabularies; Verbal Art; Nonverbal Communication;…

Studying the lexical borrowing of the Japanese community living in Hawaii inspires several hypotheses in the field of sociolinguistics. The use of borrowed words is a linguistic device to create a new Japanese dialect--Hawaiian Japanese. The borrowed words reflect the process and degree of social and psychological adjustment to the new cultural…

This study of vocabulary change investigates the regional vocabularies found in eight of the Southern states and seeks conclusions about the relative changes in uniformity in current local use. Assumptions, procedures, and techniques for research are presented here. The results reported were obtained from a printed vocabulary questionnaire…