Examined an aspect of modality in the Spanish spoken in the Houston, Texas community. Demonstrates that semantic-pragmatic variation and change are taking place and affecting the forms of "deber (de) and "tener que" in their deontic and epistemic modes. Interviewed Mexicans and Mexican-Americans in Spanish. Analyses show an…

Examines how linguistic standard globalization in a call centre affects the value of bilingualism and the linguistic varieties of a francophone minority population. Bilingualism grants access to a job in the information and service sector, but since the emergence of linguistic standardization in this sector only a certain selection of individuals…

Examines the different agencies of language planning of the Island of Jersey and the progress that has been made, comparing the corpus and status planning undertaken in this context with that which occurs in countries where more support is forthcoming from the state. Suggests that high prestige domains do not necessarily hold the key to successful…

Describes a series of evaluations of gender pairs of New Zealand English, Australian English, American English, and received-pronunciation-type-English English voices by over 400 students in New Zealand, Australia, and the United States. Twenty-two personality and demographic traits were evaluated by Likert-scale questionnaires. Results are…

Examines the text of a popular radio series in natal, South Africa in the 1940s, "Applesammy and Naidoo," with a view to adding to the historical data base on Indian South African English. A comparison is made between direct speech of the Indian characters in the series and tape recordings of pre-basilectal speakers. Data suggest the…

Investigates the perception and application of the norm in South African English with specific reference to Black South African English. Hypothesizes that South African English is in the hibernation and expansion phase. Three sets of data are presented and analyzed. (Author/VWL)

Investigates stress placement in one variety of Black South African English (BSAE), namely Tswana English. A corpus of 333 polysyllabic words was analyzed in detail to determine the properties of the Tswana English stress system; properties were interpreted by means of optimality theory. Concludes that stress is stored lexically in function words,…

Two accounts of the variable use of inflection in adult second language (L2) acquisition are examined: The Missing Surface Inflection Hypothesis (MSIH) and the Impaired Representation Hypothesis (IRH). These hypotheses make different predictions for adult L2 acquisition. Spontaneous production data from two adult learners of French and two adult…

Presents evidence that /u/-fronting, a sound change observable in California Anglo speakers is found in the majority Mexican-American community as well, among Chicano speakers of English. Results of the study underscore the need to analyze variation within the context of those social categories that are of particular significance to the specific…

Examined accentuation patterns that appear in Japanese adaptation of French words. Argues that these patterns reflect the default accentuation of Japanese grammar; they correspond to accent patterns found in some marginal sectors of Japanese vocabulary where the accent is predictable. (Author/VWL)

This study uses the technique of electropalatography to investigate lingualpalatal contact patterns during the production of the consonants /t, k, s, x, n, l, / by four Greek speakers with profound hearing impairment and with differences in the intelligibility of their speech. The study provides a detailed description of their tongue-palate…

This article offers a response to the comments and claims made in Jennifer Jenkins' article, "The spread of English as an International Language: a testing time for testers." It examines some assumptions underpinning her views and responds to claims about current policy and practice in English language testing. It goes on to explain the key…

Kachru (1988) and Sridhar and Sridhar (1992) argue that the spread of English as a world language increases the types of context in which English is learnt today. The sociolinguistic realities of world Englishes learners today challenge the validity of some second-language acquisition theories. One of the theoretical limitations of existing…

All languages encode aspects of culture and every culture has its own specificities to be proud of and to be transmitted. The papers in this book explore aspects of this relationship between language and culture, considering issues related to the processes of internationalization and localization of the English language. The volume is divided into…

Language education has a long tradition in the Finnish educational system owing to the official bilingualism of the country with the Finnish and Swedish languages, its geopolitical location, and the limited possibility to use the national languages in international contacts. Since the end of the 20th century, English has gained ground from other…