This study explores the question of whether native and nonnative listeners, some familiar with the language and some not, differ in their accent ratings of native speakers (NSs) and nonnative speakers (NNSs). Although a few studies have employed native and nonnative judges to evaluate native and nonnative speech, the present study is perhaps the…

The introduction and spread of "Ms" as the courtesy address title for women is a cornerstone of feminist linguistic planning for English. Its introduction aimed to eradicate the discriminatory inequity in the address system that exposed women through their (non)marital relationship with men. The understanding, use and impact of the courtesy title…

This paper starts from the premise that Sperber and Wilson's account of verbal irony is adequate and generalizable. It can be successfully extended to account for verbal irony in literary discourse by paying particular attention to the questions of attribution, recontextualization and attitude communication. The paper further argues that…

A review of the NCTE publication "Students' Right to Their Own Language." (RM)

The article explores the interrelationships between theory, ideology, empirical research, and practical affairs, with particular reference to the sociolinguistic nature of the Chicano community. (NQ)

Examins historical and current views of pidgins and creoles. (KM)

A survey examining the effect of sex, age and social class on the development of the speech habits of children of elementary school age in Germany. (Text is in German.) (TL)

It is asserted that before the end of the century there probably will be more black people who speak the English tongue as their native language than there will be British people. This use of a white language with its color prejudices and residual racisms is discussed in terms of the psychological identity strains it can create for black men,…

Sociolinguistics is a multidisciplinary field that studies language in temporal and spatial contexts, and observes language functions, identity and design, and considers the process of language learning and social controls on language. (CK)

Analysis of two Harold Pinter plays, "The Birthday Party" and "The Dumb Waiter," illustrates the complementarity of cohesion and coherence in discourse analysis. Coherence is defined as the structure of verbal interaction on a higher level than grammar. Cohesion is defined as the resources of a language that generates…

The standard treatment of object pronouns in Latin American Spanish assigns a direct-object function to "lo" and "la" and an indirect-object function to "le." This study challenges this descriptive attribution in light of the contradictory and refractory evidence in Spanish morphosyntax. It is suggested that more…

This study investigates the applicability of the speech act theory to written discourse, specifically that of the press. A survey of Searle's taxonomy leads to the suggestion that the constituent statements of most newspaper articles belong to the class of illocutionary acts he calls "representatives." In consideration of the basic characteristic…

The communication of "person" has been a particularly elusive area of Japanese discourse. The elusive status of the person term (as distinguished from the Indo-European personal pronoun) raises the question of whether such terms, along with titles, kin terms, proper names, age-status terms, and zero forms, may all be part of a single…

Advocates more scholarly attention to language planning processes in Israel. (PM)

Investigates the following as possibly related to the longevity of slang items in Hebrew: the language of origin, the category of content, structural characteristics and the background characteristics of the users. (PM)