As an example leading toward a social grammar of language, three emotions are analyzed in English and Yoruba. Certain communication features in English that lie in intonation and stress require a change of grammar in Yoruba and that these changes are subject to further categorization through status and solidarity. (Author/RM)

This article is a qualitative sociolinguistic profile of the present language situation in Nigeria. The home, the government, religion, holidays and leisure activities, education, work, the market, clubs, and mass media are described in their relation to language types and functions. (SCC)

This article discusses the interactive behavior that accompanies verbal exchange. It specifically describes a set of experiments designed to isolate an important subset of interactive behavior, the vocal (as opposed to the verbal) and to relate this information to a wide range of social impressions resulting from verbal exchange. (Available from…

Current work in American dialectology is summarized and commented on. (Available from: See FL 508 214.) (RM)

The concept of language barrier has its derivations in the fields of dialectology, sociology and psychology. In contemporary usage however, the concept has two meanings i.e. regional-cultural barrier and socio-cultural barrier. (Text is in German.) (DS)

This is both a report on the numbers of native speakers of Apachean languages and a statement of the need for sociolinguistic studies of these languages. (CK)

Eighteen issues are outlined concerning theory and measurement of attitude, and language attitude in particular, and research motivated by these issues described. (RM)

As the field of sociolinguistics has emerged, its terminology, which like many other emerging disciplines contains many neologisms and new usages, has sometimes been called insensitive. This reaction may interfere with serious examination of the field's content. Areas of disagreement or dispute include terms used for the speech of black…

Satellite telecommunications are part of an integrated grid of technologies that make possible what many call the Information Age. The English language is the dominant language of this age and of global telecommunications, based in part on its already clear role as the major "universal" language, especially in science and technology.…

This book contains 15 essays on the relation of language to ethnicity, race, and culture. Although a wide variety of topics are covered, much of the discussion is intended to contribute to an understanding of the Western "ethnic revival" of the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s and the sociology of language in general. Chapter titles are: (1) "Language,…

Standard written English is defined by those in power as a classless and unchanging grapholect, a public idiom in worldwide use that is presently the unofficial official language. However, true standard English is not changeless, but represents a product in constant process, existing though there is conflict and variation within both the norm and…

A national language is useful as one means of creating social cohesion at the level of the whole country. It is also a symbol of national identity and of a nation's distinction from other countries. Probably no nation will ever be fully satisfied with a language that is a national language in the symbolic sense only, but the symbolic function of a…

A discussion of the role of transfer of native-language knowledge to second language learning proposes that language transfer is as much a sociolinguistic process as a psycholinguistic one. The term "sociolinguistics" is used in a broad sense to incorporate all social factors that affect language, both the relatively static characteristics of an…

The nature of gazing at someone or something, as a form of communication among the Bahemba people in eastern Zaire, is analyzed across a range of situations. Variations of steady gazing, a common eye contact routine, are outlined, including: (1) negative non-gazing or glance routines, especially in situations in which gazing would ordinarily…

The role and use of Spanish in the geographic areas outside of the U.S. Southwest are examined in a collection of 16 conference papers. The papers address the general topics of language contact, linguistic variation, sociolinguistic factors, and language maintenance policy, and planning. Among the specific issues discussed are: a dialectology of…