The article deals with the analysis of the addressee's factor foregrounding in the limerick discourse. The study demonstrates that the limerick discourse is characterised by an addresser-writer's and an addressee-reader/listener's reciprocality via idiosyncratic protagonists portrayed by an addresser-writer. A limerick presents a laconic…

This study examines the role of listeners' native language (L1) background in judgments of comprehensibility (ease of understanding) for speakers from same and different L1 backgrounds, to determine the extent of a shared second language (L2) comprehensibility benefit. Forty L2 English speakers from Mandarin, French, Hindi, and English backgrounds…

"Interactional competence" is a theoretical construct that has only recently been tested empirically. Speakers contribute to an interaction with their individual resources; however, interactional competence is co-constructed by all participants. Interactional competence can be observed in spoken interaction as speakers' combined ability…

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)

Analysis of an intonational contour generally used to convey uncertainty about the appropriateness of some evoked scale or scalar value (as in "Anna may marry Manny") is extended to accommodate both uncertainty and incredulity interpretations. This paper proposes a more general account of L*+HLH%, based on an acoustic and pragmatic…

The collection of seven working papers in linguistics includes: "Proceeding from Syllable Inventory to Phonemic Inventory in the Analysis of Liangshan Yi (Andy Eatough); "Empty Consonants in Root-Medial Position" (Stephen A. Marlett); "What Is Literature? A Definition Based on Prototypes" (Jim Meyer); "Seri…