The linguistic situation of Yoruba is described briefly and the origins of Arabic influence on the language are examined. It is noted that Arabic influences Yoruba mainly through Hausa, and four basic conditions results from adaptation of Arabic phonemes in Yoruba: (1) the consonant, which does not exist in Yoruba, is dropped without replacement;…

A study investigated how a television talk show host manipulates the social and psychological distances in the television show context to entertain guests and audience. An ethnographic approach was taken to the research, and analysis focused on the use of politeness strategies and face-saving and face-threatening interactions. The television talk…

Analysis of the Korean verb "na-ka-ta" ("to get out, exit") focuses on why an expression such as "kyengkicang-ey na-ka-ta" ("someone goes out/in to the sports arena") is acceptable only in the context that the person's entering the arena is for the purpose of a contest, while it becomes semantically…

In Quebec French, unlike standard French, sentence negation "pas" ("not") can occur in the same clause as a negative quantifier like "personne" ("nobody"), for instance. This paper proposes that "pas" in these contexts marks negative association in the same way that "ne" does in standard…

A discussion of Bolanci (also Bole or Bolewa), a West Chadic language spoken in northeastern Nigeria, focuses on one component of the system of complementation, the form "na." This form has an inherent semantic capable of influencing the meaning of sentences in which it is embedded, specifically, when present in a complex sentence,…

A study examined traditional Hindi songs typically sung by women during north Indian weddings, using pragmatic and semantic analysis. Some historical and cultural background for the practice of women's singing at weddings is offered. It is suggested that gender roles are defined and regulated through the language of this speech event, and that…

A study examined the stages of acquisition of Spanish definite articles by two groups of English-speaking learners enrolled in their first semester of Spanish. The approach taken was to analyze writing samples produced by the groups at different times during the semester, to obtain the basis for a pseudo-longitudinal analysis of article usage. The…

A study investigated the variety of ways in which managers use language in sociolinguistically sensitive ways to get things done at work. Drawing on a database of over 300 interactions in a range of New Zealand workplaces, aspects of power (how things are accomplished), politeness (the importance of small talk), and solidarity (the difference…

While little attention has been given in historiography to the language of historical narrative, and the role language plays in portraying history, the discipline of linguistics, and particularly the subdisciplines of discourse analysis and functional linguistics, have given increasing attention to the discourse of history. Recently, a group of…

This report discusses the stress patterns of Bengali as spoken in Bangladesh. One of the findings indicate that every word has stress in the first syllable, with additional stress in the first syllable of the first word of the phrase. The Bengali language does not have penultimate and antepenultimate stress. Because there is no rule for changing…

A study of Black American spirituals focuses on African linguistic patterns that have persisted in them. The analysis begins with a brief account of the history and nature of Black spirituals, the sacred songs created by Americans of African descent during the time of slavery (1619-1864). Six elements of spirituals are identified and discussed,…

A study of silent and filled pauses in second language speech analyzes (1) which types of pause are produced, (2) which are the functions of non-juncture pauses, (3) whether pauses co-occur with other hesitation phenomena, and (4) whether the occurrence of pauses is associated with second language proficiency. Subjects were 15 intermediate and…

The first complete descriptive grammar of Lillooet, an interior Salish language spoken in British Columbia (Canada), uses the structuralist method to provide a detailed analysis of the language's sound system, word structure, and syntax, and to explain their functions and positions within Lillooet's overall linguistic structure. The account is…

The syllable structure of Dholuo, a Nilo-Saharan language spoken in Western Kenya, is analyzed according to the generative CV-phonology model, which assumes that the syllable has a three-tiered structure: syllable node; CV-tier; and segmental tier. The consonant and vowel repertoires of Dholuo are outlined and charted, and syllable peak patterns,…

Traditionally, the study of language patterns has been viewed primarily in terms of rules of grammar and discourse and of vocabulary choice. Researchers are now exploring the nature of collocations, or patterns of word sequence or co-occurrence in discourse. Most of the attention has been focused on colorful collocations, not on more ordinary…