The present paper concentrates on several issues relevant to research into multilingualism in Estonia. It is argued that a macrosociolinguistic approach is insufficient when not counterbalanced with microsociolinguistic studies (case studies of actual linguistic behaviour, linguistic creativity, mechanisms and practices of multilingual…

This article presents a variationist analysis of verbs meaning "reside" in Ontario French. Four lexical variants are examined: "demeurer," "habiter," "rester" and "vivre." Results reveal that "rester" is used most often by unrestricted speakers and least often by those whose use of French…

The objective of this response article is to think through some of what I see as the far-reaching implications of a recent paper by Eric Hauser (2005) entitled "Coding 'corrective recasts': the maintenance of meaning and more fundamental problems". Hauser makes a compelling, empirically-backed case for his contention that, contrary to widespread…

Moroccan Arabic has two competing syntactic constructions for possessive marking: a synthetic one and an analytic one. The distribution of these constructions is investigated in semi-spontaneous narratives (frog stories) from four Moroccan cities and from the diaspora community in the Netherlands. This distribution is found to depend very much on…

This article examines the current usage of terms of address in the Western Ukrainian variety of the Ukrainian language. It investigates the use of pronominal ("ty"--intimate form; ["Vy"--polite, distant form) and nominal forms of address (such as first name, father's name, surname, title, "pan/pani" (Mr/Mrs), "tovarys" (Comrade) etc.) in Western…

Student admission into heritage language programs is usually determined by locally designed placement exams. However, there are no norms to guide language teaching professionals in the assessment of this student population. This study looks at placement exams completed by heritage learners of Spanish at the University of Houston. The…

This book introduces beginning students of linguistics at all levels and general readers to the study of language, providing an overview of key topics and an explanation of basic terms and ideas. The book is also designed to encourage the reader to think about the way language works and reconsider some popular misconceptions about language and…

The 13 articles in this serial issue are as follows (with all titles translated into English); "Swiss Sociolinguistics--Sociolinguistics in Switzerland" (Iwar Werlen); "Public Space, Medias, and Identities of Language. Reference Points for an Analysis of the Swiss Imaginary Collective"; (Jean Widmer); "Anthropological and…

Four aspects of English pragmatics that are often puzzling to students of English as a Second Language (ESL) are discussed and exemplified: certain mechanics (ellipsis; blended words; a-grammaticality); vague superordinates (generic verbs such as "get,""let,""do,""be,""have"; preposition with metaphoric extension such as "up,""in,""off,""through";…

A study of codeswitching patterns in American speakers of Finnish, primarily at the syntactic level, is presented. Subjects are 21 Finnish-English bilinguals aged 8 to 91 years, whose speech in naturally occurring speech situations was recorded and analyzed for intrasentential codeswitching. The analysis looked at (1) how much codeswitching could…

A discussion of the relationship between national identity and language in Spanish-speaking Latin America focuses on issues concerning indigenous languages, education, and literacy. The sociolinguistic history and configuration Spanish-speaking Latin America are outlined briefly, noting the influences of indigenous populations, non-Spanish…

Two traditional principles have served as the basis for the involvement of linguists in social issues, namely the principle of error correction and the principle of debt incurred (Labov, 1982). It is argued that an additional principle should motivate linguists to take a more proactive role in social issues, the principle of linguistic gratuity.…

This study investigated the relationship between ideology and speech patterns in Modern Israeli Hebrew. Eighty native speakers of university age were provided with descriptions of events in which some desired object or information was the goal, then asked what they would say to attain the goal and to construct examples of stylized uses of speech…

A study investigated differences in discourse styles that may affect second language listening comprehension. Ten amateur actors performed three speaking tasks: (1) reading aloud a short self-contained narrative; (2) acting out a memorized script; and (3) conversing with the researcher for 20-30 minutes. Excerpts of the recorded tasks in different…

Emphasizing a sociocultural view, this book encourages language teachers to broaden their views of the English language arts curriculum, and thereby increase students' opportunities to examine a broader array of language elements (semantics, regional and social variations, discourse conventions). The first section of the book describes what…