Media literacy education has become increasingly present in curricular initiatives around the world as media saturate our cultural environments. For second-language teachers and teacher educators whose practice centers on language, communication, and culture, the need to address media as a pedagogical site of critique is imperative. In this…

Describes a new research project on York English, a variety in northeast England. Conducted a quantitative analysis of a linguistic feature that recurs pervasively in varieties of English worldwide--"was/were" variation in the past tense paradigm. (Author/ER)

Suggests the use of principal components analysis as an alternative solution to the problem of grouping speakers by sociological characteristics prior to quantitative analysis. An example is presented of its application to vowel variation data collected as part of a sociolinguistic survey of English in Sydney, Australia. (Author/CB)