This article first introduces some theoretical considerations concerning the emergence and evolution of sign languages from the semiogenetic perspective. It then presents results from a linguistic study of the phenomenon of lexical stabilization in three emerging sign languages used by Brazilian deaf adults who live in a hearing environment…

Discusses the limits of Harris' and Chomsky's models for discourse analysis and questions their epistemological basis. Also discusses the "French school of discourse analysis." (Text is in French.) (AM)

Background/Context: Diane Ravitch has focused on the extensive censorship occurring within the publication of school textbook and testing materials in her book, "The Language Police" (2003). This book, indicative of conservative frustrations with minority special interest groups, raises several key issues echoed throughout the larger educational…

This study is built upon an understanding of a wide range of variables including foreign language education in Turkey, the sociolinguistic profile of English, the phenomena of code-switching, language transfer (in particular second language transfer in third language production), teaching of a second foreign language after English, plurilingualism…

Basil Bernstein's research on the sociology of language indicates that he views language as both subjective and objective. Subjectively, it structures an individual's intentions and thought processes; objectively, it preserves and makes public the store of knowledge of human society. The sharing of language is the basic way in which the objective…

Explores the characteristics of a useful myth and identifies and describes several in the field of social dialectology: autonomous linguistics, standard/nonstandard polarity, bidialectalism, and community accountability. (KM)

Presents a linguistic and sociolinguistic analysis of the use of the words "socialism" and "socialist" in Jean Jaures' discourse, with a view to answering the following questions: (1) what is the process of semantic change, from a philosophical term to a political one; and (2) what is the nature of "political…

Attempts to answer the questions "why study Saussure?" and "how?" through an historical analysis of Saussure's work, based on the "langue/parole" distinction. (AM)

The distinction between synchronic and diachronic linguistics is criticized on the ground that both approaches eliminate the individual from consideration and are insensitive to changes in the individual and society. (Author/RM)

The arbitrariness of linguistic categories is discussed. Consideration of some other fields of human activity suggests that the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is true, and it is suggested that the process of grammaticalization might be understood as a kind of ritualization. (57 references) (Author/LB)

Examines the use of introspection in applied linguistic research to raise critical language awareness. Provides an example of the author's diary to illustrate the social, cultural, and political processes that underlie language learning. Implications, including those for teaching methodology, for humanistically oriented language educators are…

A study examined what trained phoneticians do when they are presented with a transcription task to carry out without any knowledge of the dialect they are listening to and without any explicit phonological theory as a point of departure. The "best" tokens of three categories of potential assimilation (full, partial, and zero alveolar)…

This study of linguistic change is done within the "dynamic paradigm" of linguistic description, in which the strict dichotomy between diachronic and synchronic linguistics found in "static paradigms" is not maintained. The chief purpose here is to indicate how rate could be built into a linguistic description of sound change, such change being…

Traces the development of the Marrist controversy. (AM)