Examines, within the framework of contrastive rhetoric, nominal clauses and predicates, arguing that there are essential differences in nominalization between English and Japanese, such as focusing on the event in Japanese and on the individual in English. The article emphasizes the diverse ways in which languages are endowed to express different…

Examines the nature of language diversity in the small, isolated community of Ocracoke Island, North Carolina, where a lone African American family has resided for over 130 years. (57 references) (Author/CK)

Reports research in cross-cultural differences between Americans from the United States and Germans, regarding the connotations of vocabulary items, specifically two sample words: "Cliquen" and "Kneipen." Over a period of five years, more than 50 native speakers from both cultures, who had experience with the other culture, were interviewed on…

The "Official English" movement threatens to undermine guarantees of bilingual services to students with limited proficiency in English. The movement is backed by U.S. English, an offshoot of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). Critics claim the real issue is a desire for a stricter immigration policy. (MLF)

Surveys English language teaching texts organized around the teaching of functions to explicate problems evident in their presentation of speech acts. The ability to communicate with native speakers appropriately is crucial. Whereas phonological, syntactic and lexical errors are often forgiven, sociolinguistic errors are interpreted as breaches of…

Using variationist methodology, this study analyzed natural speech data from 31 speakers of standard Canadian English and found an overwhelming preference for singular agreement in existentials. Contrary to predictions, this was not linked to a determiner-based structural distinction but rather to the form of the copula and the speaker's level of…

This article offers special educators suggestions for using the natural occurrence of multiple dialects in the school and community as a means to teach children about the nature of language in society, increase their language awareness, learn about dialects, and learn standard English as a second dialect if necessary. (DB)

Many African American students produce African American English (AAE) features that are contrastive to Standard American English (SAE). The AAE-speaking child who is able to dialect shift, that is, to speak SAE across literacy contexts, likely will perform better academically than the student who is not able to dialect shift. Method: This…

American schools have debated the merits of a national canon since the inception of English as a subject a century ago. In earlier years, the mission of the language arts was much more elitist and hierarchical. English was a subject that taught the great works, so that aspiring students could be familiar with the standard pantheon of authors and…

In 2 experiments, the authors examined the electro-physiological auditory responses of monolingual French listeners to American English vowel contrasts as a function of the surrounding vowel context. The context was determined on the basis of behavioral results (C.Meunier, C. Frenck-Mestre, T. Lelekov-Boissard & M. Le Besnaris, 2003, 2004). In…

This publication (one of a series) contains 14 articles which report the status and progress of studies on the nature of speech, instruments for its investigation, and practical applications. Articles include: "The Universality of Intrinsic FO of Vowels: (D. H. Whalen and Andrea G. Levitt); "Intrinsic F0 of Vowels in the Babbling of 6-,…

This transcript of and guide to a two-cassette course designed to assist New Yorkers in erasure of their accents can be used for either individual or group study. Narrative and taped demonstrations of Standard American English that pinpoint typical phonological barriers and pronunciation difficulties are outlined. The author's own system of…

The "Southwest" dialect, previously isolated in San Antonio, Texas, has been isolated south of that area. Data were drawn from the Linguistic Atlas of the Gulf States (LAGS) and interviews with ten lower-middle/upper-lower class informants. Seven communities were represented by seven female and three male English speakers (four…

Foreigner talk (FT) has been characterized as speech "used by speakers of a language to outsiders who are felt to have limited command of a language or no knowledge of it," or "the variety of language that is regarded by a speech community as primarily appropriate for addressing foreigners." A study was carried out in Germany…

This article attempts to assess the validity of dividing Polish students of English into British and American groups. The tests of the various hypotheses regarding linguistic and non-linguistic results of such divisions are described. (AM)