Observation of language change caused by language contact tend not to support theories put forth by Meillet, Jakobson, Weinreich, and others that there are linguistic prerequisites for such change. A theory of the social factors that determine what kinds of language change will take place as a result of contact begins with the recognition of two…

The natural process of learning language is to concentrate on what we mean, not only on how we are saying it. What we mean is dependent upon the context in which we speak. This context in turn depends on the society or the speech-community in which our speech act takes place. To be a member of a speech community is to know what language behavior…

Views from different disciplines and within different disciplines often come into sharp conflict with one another about the speech of lower socio-economic class Negroes. Furthermore, some current views of Black English have challenged basic linguistic and sociolinguistic premises about the nature of language. It is therefore the purpose of this…

This article discusses sentence structure and sentence production as an integral process that reflects the given situation as perceived by the speaker, and not merely as a grammatical combination of words. The role of predicativity in sentence production is outlined. (CLK)

This article proposes a new analysis of illocutionary force, in terms of discourse practices, and specifically analyzes the act of reproaching. (Text is in French.) (CLK)

Traces the development of discourse analysis in modern linguistics, and presents a semantic analysis, based on a comparative word frequency count, of two political speeches made by the socialist Jean Jaures. (AM)

Outlines the history and essential features of Marr's linguistic theory. (AM)

Discusses Bernstein's "language deficit" theory ("restricted code" of the lower social class versus the "elaborated code" of upper-class speakers) and Labov's "language difference" theory. The former is rejected, and the latter is favored. Sociolinguistics should consider more than mere social-class language differences. (Text is in German.)…

Discusses two opposing sociolinguistic theories, the Whorfian hypothesis and diglossia, which in turn help to illustrate the interdisciplinary nature of the sociolinguistic field, a field characterised by varied and ideological differences. One solution suggested for this kind of sectarian behavior is to build methodological diversity into the…

Presents theory of "audience design" which assumes that speakers design their style of talk for their audience, and examines how speakers do this. Also examines the effects on style shift of nonpersonal factors (such as topic and setting) and of referees (the class of persons with whom the speaker identifies). (SED)

Revised version of a paper presented at the Language-Learning Conference, Lake Wilderness, Washington, March 3, 1973. (RL)

Lecture given at the conference on Gegenwartssprache and Gesellschaft'' (Contemporary Language and Society) at the Evangelische Akademie'' in Loccum, West Germany, February 26-28, 1971. (RS)

Original version of this paper was read at the Fifth Meeting of the Southeastern Conference on Linguistics, University of Maryland, May 1971. Argues that accounting for coherence in discourse should be one of the goals of linguistic theory; making coherent discourse, not the isolated sentence, the domain of linguistic explanation also throws…

Presents a model of communication through translation that accounts for the complexity of the process and attempts to draw a coherent view of the sociological and cultural factors involved. Stresses the necessity of calling upon a number of disciplines to provide conceptual and methodological clarification. (MES)