Using the case of Serbo-Croatian linguistic terminology as an example, discusses some of the problems of standardizing vocabulary across two more more languages. (EKN)

Language is crucial in our lives and to all disciplines. It affects our well-being individually and collectively and touches important sociopolitical issues. Linguists/applied linguists have exciting opportunities for interdisciplinary research and to work in contexts personally meaningful to them. While language is the concern of all people,…

Genericization theory developed as a response to claims from outside of linguistics that generic use in brand names (for example, using Kleenex as a generic noun for all facial tissues, or Xerox for all photocopiers) is the result of marketing factors or misuse by consumers. This paper examines the linguistic factors that create an environment…

When asylum seekers flee persecution or war in their home countries, they often arrive in a new country seeking asylum, without documentation that can prove their nationality. They are thus open to the accusation that they are not actually fleeing persecution and/or war, but they are from another country and they are merely seeking "a better…

A brief review of social constructivism as a general movement and how it has been applied in particular to scientific knowledge precedes a review of investigations into the role language and linguistic activities have in the social construction of knowledge. A 39-citation unannotated bibliography is included. (CB)

Report on the Seminar on German Applied Linguistics sponsored by the British Association for Applied Linguistics, March 1972, Nottingham, England. (RS)

Argues that applied linguistics should take as its central focus the concept of "language in the world." Emphasizes that it is necessary to examine the autonomy or interdependence of linguistic, cognitive, and social processes and to define research questions addressing the connection of these processes in an interdisciplinary fashion. (17…

Language maintenance remains either passive, with no overt efforts at preservation or active with language planning. Models for language maintenance are reviewed along with language reinforcement efforts. An annotated bibliography is included. (Contains 43 references.) (LB)

Discusses how current applied and sociolinguistic research and theory, which reveals the naturalness of language variation and productive aspects of error-making, seriously challenges traditional second language learning practices and postulates. (EKN)

Report on the Course sponsored by the Institut fur deutsche Sprache (Institute for the German Language) and funded by the Volkswagen Foundation. (RS)

The notion of critical linguistics is examined, and it is argued that the diverse objectives usually given for Language Awareness programs appear to be given desocializing weightings in actual materials. Ways that Critical Language Awareness can be incorporated into a family history writing project are described. (20 references) (Author/LB)

In order to define words borrowed from other languages, dialects or varieties within a dialect, a synchronic definition, including the degree of integration into the borrowing language, is more useful and flexible than the traditional etymological approach. (Text is in German.) (TL)

Eight essays in ethnolinguistics were compiled for this monograph. "Functions of Speech: An Evolutionary Approach" represents an introduction to the application of linguistic knowledge to the historical and sociological study of peoples. "Speech and Language: On the Origins and Foundations of Inequality among Speakers" expands on the theme of…

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…