This book discusses the relationship between gender and language use in a framework of social interaction. In so doing, it reports on research concerned with sexism in language, the use of language by women and men, and the evaluations of language use by women and men. Language is considered within four theoretical frameworks in which assumptions…

One of the most significant problems that linguists face in their attempts to describe Vernacular Black English (VBE) is the matter of fluctuating forms. It is consistently observed that speakers appear to fluctuate between a socially stigmatized variant and its presumed nonstigmatized counterpart. Fluctuations in VBE have often been viewed as a…

The assumptions of sociolinguistics are contrasted with those of its more static predecessors in light of their potential for bearing on educational problems. The focus on variability with regard to sex, age, style, socioeconomic status, race, education is more akin to the dynamics of the linguistic and educational setting in which a child finds…

Sociolinguistics is characterized by a concern for viewing language variation and for seeing language in real social contexts. It has a high potential for relationship and application to other fields such as education, sociology, and psychology. Sociolinguistics try to study the speech of a community, and instead of studying the presence or…

Course designers and teachers of English as a second or foreign language need a pedagogical grammar, that is, a collection of linguistic statements about English which specifies the linguistic behaviors that an ESL/EFL learner will need to acquire and which can easily be used in the preparation of materials and lessons. Pedagogical grammars…

This study was designed to determine whether subjects would behave differently to a standard and nonstandard British-accented speaker. The matched-guise procedure was used with a stimulus speaker present, face-to-face with listeners. Listeners did not know they would subsequently be required to evaluate the speaker's personality. (Author/RM)

Discusses the sociolinguistic hypotheses of deficit and difference, criticizing the latter for deriving a "functional equivalence" from clearly different social contexts, leading to passivity and lack of results in current school practice. (Text is in German.) (IFS/WGA)

A study of the spoken French of 120 residents of Montreal. The researchers were interested in the linguistic and social factors influencing the use of "avoir" and "etre." Results show that this usage corresponds to a tendancy to regularize conjugations. (Text is in French.) (AMH)

Analysis of tense usage in 20 scientific articles from the "Journal of Pediatrics" reveals a hierarchy of sociolinguistic relationships among context-dependent rhetorical functions, context-independent temporal meanings, and actual tense choices. (Author/CB)

Describes three experiments that show that when requesting information, speakers estimate the greatest potential obstacles to compliance and try to overcome them through their choice of indirect, or conditional, requests. In selecting their request, speakers in most situations try to pinpoint the obstacles as specifically as they can. (SED)

Special issue on "Changing Linguistics." (DD)

Examines viewers' perceptions of characters and their speech to see if: (1) the language of the characters corresponds to the language of Black speech communities as described by sociolinguists; (2) White viewers perceive language as important in their perceptions of the characters; and (3) White viewers are more likely to identify with speakers…

An interactional sociolinguistic analysis of social and attitudinal factors in face to face encounters shows how such factors can affect the evaluation of human action and contribute to the maintenance of socioeconomic disadvantage among ethnic minorities. (Author/GC)

Analyzes the language of advertising and the expressive devices it uses to capture the attention of the consumer and arouse his/her interest. Condemns the artificiality of this language and the social values it reflects, quoting profusely from the works of Herman Glaser and other contemporary authors. (MES)