Diglossia is characterized here as a pattern in which a culture recognizes different language varieties. This paper deals with implications of Arabic diglossia for the teaching of English to Arab students. (CHK)

This article presents the results of a questionnaire sent to Spanish teachers regarding possible orthographic reforms in Spanish. Changes considered included elimination of certain letters and representation of each phoneme by only one letter. Responses to each question are classified and explained. (Text is in Spanish.) (CHK)

Reports on attempts to determine whether Cuban Abakua is a pidginized Afro-Spanish, creole, or dead language and concludes that some of this language, spoken by a secret society, has its roots in Efik, a language of the Benue-Congo, and seems to be a simple, ritualistic, structureless argot. (CB)

Describes the high Italian speech variety commonly used by Italian Americans, based on a study of 39 Italian Americans that included interviews and questionnaires. Dialectal characteristics, convergence with English, and language maintenance and language shift in the Italian-American community are discussed. (CB)

Critiques Carstair's Paradigm Economy Principle (PEP) with regard to historical linguistics. The principle "one form, one meaning" (OFOM) is contrasted with PEP as providing a more satisfactory explanation for occurrences of morphological change. Latin and Maori paradigms are used as examples. (Author/LMO)

Discusses a quantitative study of the use of Australian Questioning Intonation (AQI) in Sydney, which reveals that it has the social distribution characteristic of a language change in progress. The social motivations of AQI are examined in terms of local identity and the entry of new ethnic groups into the community. (Author/SED)

An analysis of Canadian French vocabulary and an experiment in increasing the communicative ability of French learners by adding Canadian French vocabulary and rules for its use to the syllabus are reported. (MSE)

Examines the conversational behavior of eight-year-old Hawaiian boys and girls of either Caucasian or Japanese descent in same ethnic and same-gender pairs or in mixed-ethnic and/or mixed-gender pairs. Results suggest that temporal speech patterns are stable characteristics of children's vocal behavior, and that these conversational rhythms vary…

Describes a study concerned with distinguishing certain phonological and morphological features of the three dialects of Occitan, a language spoken in the south of France. Results indicate that variations in pronunciation seem to depend on sociolinguistic, as well as geographical factors, and in fact, related dialects and language cannot be…

Describes how many of the phrasings attacked by cliche-hunters as trite, worn-out, or unoriginal can be legitimately defended on other grounds, by the criteria of speed and clarity, familiarity, social bonding, and personal delight. (CRH)

Results of research of children's evaluative reactions to bilingual code switching indicate that children by at least 11 years of age are aware of situational, interpersonal, and intergroup factors in dyadic interactions involving interlocutors from distinct ethnolinguistic groups. Suggests that manipulations of the research technique could be…

Suggests that good business writing is dependent on solving the problem of the best psychological approach to readers, organization, writing style, and English usage. (MH)

Bernstein's theory was tested in the homosexual's "closed" community to determine code-switching ability and its relationship to jargon. Subjects told a story based on homoerotic photographs where knowledge of sexual orientation was varied. Results suggest that homosexual homophyly encouraged elaboration. (Author)

This paper presents an overview of current trends in a new discipline called diachronic sociolinguistics. This perspective leads to an original retrospective look on a thousand years of linguistic evolution, from classical spoken Latin to protoromance. The article exhorts romanists to consider the research carried out by sociolinguists who study…

Twenty texts in the Chinese dialect of Shanghai city are presented as a tool for those familiar with some dialect of Chinese who are learning this variety. The texts, recorded as spontaneous speech, were originally collected for grammatical analysis and have been revised somewhat for print form. They are arranged in approximate order of…