Examination of the descriptive power of the adjacency pair as a basic unit of conversational organization proposes that the three-part exchange, a very important element of conversational interaction, is more adequate than the adjacency pair as a basic unit of conversational organization. (Author/CB)

Describes a turn-taking system, using examples from British television and radio networks. The turn-taking system of news interviews is compared to ordinary conversation and to two other types of broadcast interviews to reveal the institutionalized footings that interviewers are conventionally required to maintain within the interviews.…

Discusses events leading up to and following the passage of a California constitutional amendment which declared English the official state language, focusing on the legislation's background, context, overwhelming support, opposition, and voting behavior. (32 references) (Author/CB)

The goal of this article is twofold: (1) on the basis of non-conjectural, concrete cases, to establish the linguistic situations that are characteristic of the socio-historical states of equilibrium and punctuation; and (2) to show that neither the equilibrium nor punctuation can be uniquely defined by a particular linguistic situation specific to…

Provides a broad sketch of the evolving world language system, introduces an index for the communication potential (Q-value) of languages within this constellation, and identifies languages as collective goods that also display "external network effects," characteristics they share with standards and non-excludable networks.(Author/JL)

Examines various relations between direct and metalevel studies of language and mathematics from an interdisciplinary perspective in order to sort out in what way these interactions may be seen as a coherent pattern of ideas. (Contains 33 references.) (ASK)

Offers a response to an article on scholarship and linguistic rights. The focus of the response is on strengthening the foundations underpinning a field that is of increasing interest not only to sociolinguistics, but also to lawyers, educationalists, economists, anthropologists, policymakers, and others. (Author/VWL)

Focuses on communications between deaf persons over telephone lines via teletypewriters (TTY). Uses sociolinguistic methods to analyze the linguistic characteristics of telecommunications conversations to identify the basic, underlying dimensions of TTY conversations. (Author/VWL)

Reviews Peter Muhlhausler's book "Linguistic Ecology: Language Change and Linguistic Imperialism in the Pacific Region." Discusses the linguistic diversity of the Pacific, the linguistic impact of colonialism in the Pacific, and the role of linguists in the evolving linguistic situation in the Pacific. (Author/VWL)

Responds to an earlier article that critiqued a book written by the author of this article on linguistic diversity in the Pacific.(Author/VWL)

Explores ways in which the globalized new economy has resulted in the commodification of language and identity, sometimes separately, sometimes together. The article is based on recent ethnographic, sociolinguistic research in francophone areas of Canada. (Author/VWL)

Suggests that while recent sociolinguistic work focusing on crossing, or language boundaries is raising significant questions concerning how we relate language, identity, and popular culture, these insights have largely passed by the sociolinguistics of world English. (Author/VWL)

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…

In this paper, I analysed Korean ESL immigrants' ethnic name changing phenomena. The interpretive discourse analyses of the 15 interview data obtained from six new immigrants, documented that four of them maintained their Korean names, whereas others anglicised their names depending upon their subjective identity positionings in a new society. In…

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…