It is proposed that middle- and upper-middle-class slang used among white young people in modern America shows age-related themes. For youngsters between the ages of eight and early adolescence, the major theme in slang use is to establish in-group and out-group membership, with standards of judgment based on clothes, manners, and physical appeal.…

This paper, part of a larger study, focuses on a single linguistic device, the "machine-gun question," which was used by three of six participants in a Thanksgiving dinner conversation. This conversational device is characteristic of a style that seems to grow out of the need to have others approve of one's wants. It is a style…

The functional approach, which views language as a potential for meaning in social situations, seems particularly relevant in analyzing the dynamic interaction between text and context. Function determines structure, and the context, which comes to define the function, determines the kinds of text that will be communicative. As the contextual…

Suggests that stylistic variation should be used by linguistis in their search for linguistic structure. (AM)

Presents data that suggest that three factors--social variables, speech register, and linguistic variables--influence the choice of grammatical structure in Brazilian Portuguese where options exist to express the same idea. Examines the range of options used in responses that indicate general patterns of linguistic structures related to particular…

Examines these distinct registral features of matrimonial newspaper advertisements in English in India: incongruity, deletion of preposition, miscellaneous deletions, two-word sentence, new abbreviations, registral confusion, stylistic variation. (RM)

Examines the language style of news and the factors that influence it, with data drawn from extensive research on radio news in Auckland, New Zealand. Study of newscasters' language style shows that newscasters will alter their style of speech depending upon who they think is listening. (PD)

Discusses the effectiveness of advertising texts in manipulating public opinion. Emphasis is placed on the connotational aspects of the texts in question. (Text is in French.) (TL)

Discusses the tradition of argument about what forms of metalinguistic discourse are valid, useful, and significant in the era of modern Western linguistics, with particular reference to the argument between linguistic science and prescriptivism. The article emphasizes that linguistic norms are open to challenge and change about what their nature…

Sociolinguistic analysis of the speech patterns in Spenser's "The Faerie Queen, Book VI" indicated that the socially different characters' language styles did not vary much among themselves or from the narrative, suggesting that the strict verse scheme requirements and a concern for unity of literary style leveled out speech particularities. (CB)

Focuses on the historical and sociolinguistic studies that illuminate corpus planning processes. These processes are broken down and discussed under two categories: those related to the establishment of norms, referred to as codification, and those related to the extension of the linguistic functions of language, referred to as elaboration. (60…

In an investigation of the use of the word "hey" in pseudoquotations, invented quotations, in current English communication, tokens (n=26) were collected from public and commercial broadcasts and miscellaneous readings. A speaker uses quote formula + hey + pseudoquotation to dramatize and give emphasis to an important point. (72…

Analysis of a sociolinguistic interview reveals repeated presentation of ideas, words, expressions, and structures. These recurrent devices and patterns increase the effect of arguments. The immediate purpose is the listener's acceptance of the speaker's views. There is also a concern to gain recognition of the speaker's opinion of self and his…

The pragmatic use of nicknames as clarifiers separates the Maltese usage from those so common throughout the world where the nickname is used as a means of hiding identity. The familial character of most nicknames in Malta suggests they are the vestiges of a pre-Christian naming system. The major peculiarity in Malta is in the intermingling of…

A discussion of social factors in language usage in the framework of sociolinguistics as defined by Labov. Some topics considered are: language as social practice, elements of a socio-differential phonology of /r/, variation in formal style, and an outline of a sociology of variation. (Text is in French.) (AMH)