Prepositions can be found with and without adjacent complements in many forms of popular spoken French. The alternation appears in main clauses ("il veut pas payer pour ca [approximately] il veut pas payer pour" "he doesn't want to pay for [it]") and, though with a more restricted social and geographic distribution, in relative…

Owing to analyses of large spoken corpora the linguistic knowledge of conversation has grown in recent years exponentially. Up until now little of this knowledge has trickled down to the EFL classroom. One of the reasons, this paper argues, is the failure in the relevant literature to spell out clearly how teaching conversational grammar affects…

Reviews previous work on phonological variation in American Sign Language (ASL) and examines issues that distinguish spoken languages. Presents an account of the data collection, reduction, and analysis, with an emphasis on issues particular to the analysis. Discusses implications of the results, including possible change in ASL. (Author/VWL)

Explores the relationship between lexicography and variation in both spoken languages and sign languages. Examines the function of dictionaries and discusses the nature of linguistic variation, using an example of lexical variation in American Sign Language. (Author/VWL)

In response to an earlier article (SLS 51) regarding duality of patterning in the evolution of language, it is suggested that all utterances of a language be coded into elementary units of meaning that could be manipulated into larger units of discourse. This method would attempt to systematize a language's constantly changing phonemic inventory.…

Illustrates how the separate economic and political development and the ensuing lack of contact between Hong Kong and Guangzhou over the last 50 years have resulted in quantifiable tonal differences in the Cantonese spoken in these two cities. (16 references) (Author/CK)

Advanced Danish students of English tried to identify the national origin of young men from Ireland, Scotland, England, and the United States from their speech and then rated the speech for attractiveness. Listeners rated speech produced by Englishmen as most attractive, and speech by Americans as least attractive. (Author/VWL)

Argues that children with limited English-speaking ability are often misdiagnosed as poor readers on formal and informal measures of reading ability. Offers suggestions for management of true miscues made in oral reading. (FL)

Business language is directed both outward, toward the general public and inward, toward the particular type of business. In the first instance, it approximates lay language and has contributed some expressions to common usage. In the second instance, it departs from lay language and becomes specialized within each industry, sometimes to the point…

The development of literacy is traced in this paper to promote the thesis that dependence on literacy education naturally leads to two competing cultures, one oral and one literate. Events in the development of the Greek alphabet are traced to advance the argument, and the differences between cultures dependent on Greek and non-Greek writing…

A language teacher urges the use of authentic listening materials that do not conform to the strictest standards of spoken usage, as a way of getting to know the language's norms and variations. (MSE)

This paper focuses on a language variation model that incorporates a number of concepts from linguistic and rhetorical studies. The model views language variation as a product of two correlating causes: one, the user and his or her personal, regional, and social dialect; and the other, the user's use of the language in terms of such discourse…

Discusses the different varieties of Spanish, the decision of which variety to teach to native speakers, and the concept of a "standard" usage. Basing the decision on sociolinguistic research, this article proposes a spoken and written variety of Spanish to be employed in teaching native speakers in the United States. (Author/JL)

Emphasizing language as both medium and object of instruction, the articles in this focused journal issue promote the interaction of students' language and teachers' language as a means to increased student awareness of, and facility with, language. The first three articles provide a context, methodology, and evaluation framework for language…