Across two experiments, preschool-aged children demonstrated selective learning of non-linguistic information from native-accented rather than foreign-accented speakers. In Experiment 1, children saw videos of a native- and a foreign-accented speaker of English who each spoke for 10 seconds, and then silently demonstrated different functions with…

In New Zealand, interest in the local variety of English is increasing. Reasons for this are given. A brief survey is made of: semantic changes, the role of Maori words, neologisms and phonetic changes. Parallels are shown with the history of British English. (IFS/WGA)

Describes forms of semantic reinvestment of occupational lexis items in Nigerian English. Three categories and two subcategories of reinvestment are identified: shift, generalization, narrowing, reassignment, and analogy. These types of semantic reinvestment are considered within a sociocultural and linguistic setting of Nigeria as a developing…

A random sampling of linguistic terms, idioms, phrases--drawn mostly from the current linguistic literature in English--is examined to determine what kinds of unrealistic or confusing assumptions about language may be subtly embedded in such expressions. (Author/RM)

This article reviews the cultural and linguistic background of Asian Indians in the United States. It highlights some of the phonological, grammatical, semantic, and vocabulary usage peculiarities of the variety of English called Indian English spoken by immigrants from the Indian subcontinent. (Author/DB)

Numerous reasons can be cited by scholars concerning lexical problems that face anyone embarking upon such an enterprise as that of preparing a Basque-English dictionary. First, "euskera," a term given to this ancient tongue, is both written and spoken today as it was millennia ago. Second, Basque, as a result, has not been subjected to…

A dictionary of Djinang, a member of the Nhangu group of Australian Aboriginal languages, consists of three parts. The first is an alphabetically-organized listing of Djinang words and contains one or more of these fields of information for each: a Djinang word or phrase, dialect information, part of speech, English meaning, Roget's Thesaurus…

This questionnaire presents about 450 phonological, lexical, and grammatical items that are used in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. In composing the dialect survey, terms pertaining to climate, topography, and ethnic groups were taken into account, as were other words and phrases which might be used by Upper Peninsula native speakers. The survey…

This paper suggests that new approaches are needed in the study of language standardization. One such approach is the consideration of standardization in terms of processes, i.e., in terms of series of related events, rather than as a group of unrelated discrete happenings. Borrowing is one recurring feature in language standardization, and in…

This systematic lexical comparison of 1,050 words from five Nigerian Igbo dialects is based on the list used for the West African Language Survey in 1960. The comparative phonologies are not to be regarded as definitive but as hypotheses derived from the present material. In Igbo, as in other Kwa languages, there are in general no consonant…

The simplification of legal language is required by President Carter's Executive Order requiring "clear and simple English" in government regulations. A major problem in the simplification process is the absence of any adequate description or classification of legal language. This paper defines some specific features of legal language,…

This noun dictionary of the Athapascan language covers all dialects of the Tanaina language of the Cook Inlet region. It has been prepared for the Dena'ina people to help maintain their language and culture. The introduction explains the Dena'ina dialects and the phonological system of the Dena'ina alphabet. The dictionary is organized into…

This vocabulary list is directed towards the Tamil instructor and the advanced student. Its primary goal is to bring some order to the teaching of vocabulary in the first two years of Tamil instruction. A secondary goal is to help the student through the vocabulary maze of Tamil diglossia. Three main criteria were employed in selecting words for…

This bibliography is intended for graduate and advanced undergraduate students who desire a convenient guide to linguistic scholarship in English, education, linguistics, and related areas. The listing is selective, but the compiler has tried to provide ample coverage of the major fields and topics, with emphasis on works published in the…

The forty papers that make up the second part of the proceedings of the twenty-seventh annual meeting of the Pacific Northwest Council on Foreign Languages cover a wide range of topics relating to foreign language teaching and linguistic theory: the interdisciplinary approach to second language instruction, individualized instruction, foreign…