Examines the distribution of word-final "/z/" in New Zealand English. The article identifies three main variants of word-final "/z/": a voiced variant, a partially devoiced variant, and a voiceless variant. Findings indicate that the voiceless variant is used more often by Maori than by Pakeha New Zealanders, and that young…

Focuses on the discussion of the contemporary state of contrastive rhetoric that took place at the 1996 convention of the Teachers of English to the Speakers of Other Languages. The position taken at the convention states that no language or culture can be reduced to one or two diagrammatic structures and that stylistically preferred compositional…

Reviews the rationale for and programmatic structure of two experimental language awareness programs and discusses some of the ethical issues requiring consideration in the implementation of such programs. These ethical considerations include the ethics of persuasion and need, the ethics of representation, the ethics of socio-educational change,…

Discusses "end-weight," long, complex phrases that tend to come at the end of clauses. Corpus data on heavy noun phrase shift, the dative alternation, and particle movement indicate that there are several structural measures of weight highly correlated with constituent ordering. (38 references) (Author/CK)

Provides evidence from a small northern U.S. city for Canadian raising, a Canadian phenomenon that heightens the onset of diphthongs in /ai/ and /au/ relative to the low central onset in neighboring dialects. Findings suggest that the Canadian diphthong varieties may not be conforming to the U.S. norm, but instead that the two varieties are…

Presents six areas in applied linguistics that might be reformed: (1) the hegemonic nature of theories; (2) dictionary-making; (3) language planning; (4) linguistic nomenclatures; (5) the treatment of standard and non-standard varieties; and (6) the delivery of second language programs. Argues that if critical realism guided applied linguistics,…

Examines phonological changes illustrating the changing nature of Hong Kong Cantonese (HKC). The article describes the historical development of syllable-initial consonants, such as nasals, affricates and coronal fricatives, and also the syllable-final stops and nasals in HKC. (24 references) (Author/CK)

Describes the process of acquisition in learner varieties with respect to reference and referential movement in the domain of modality. Findings are based on data from the longitudinal ESF and P-Moll projects and on cross-sectional data of Italian learners of German. (Author/VWL)

Analyzes the rightward movement of noun and prepositional phrases in the Early Old English poem "Beowulf." Evidence is provided for heavy noun phrase shift, with a characteristic major intonational boundary between the main verb and the postponed noun phrase, and preposition phrase extraposition, where the intonational boundary was much…

Discusses two phonological features of standard French, mid-vowels and mute e, with respect to their formal description. The wide variation involved in the use of these features by native speakers is presented, and the way that this variation adds to the complexities of language learning and teaching is examined. (JL/Author)

Discussion of the Arabic version of "Sesame Street" addresses the choice of a simplified modern standard usage as the series' language, definition of this language variety in terms of its distinguishing linguistic characteristics, and the implications of this choice for the future of Arabic and Arabic language instruction. (Author/MSE)

Examines the less obvious differences between British and American English in regard to semantics and grammar. A comparison is made, to see how American and British styles differ for public notice, in an experiment in which speakers of American English were asked to paraphrase notices from a British public utility office. (Author/OD)

Describes some of the current research on Brazilian Portuguese phonology. Various techniques are discussed that analysts utilize to investigate Brazilian Portuguese nasality. (49 references) (CB)

Examines the various strategies by which Gaelic has been employed in the newspaper press in Scotland. The prospect for a monolingual or bilingual newspaper is considered and a comparison with the uses of Gaelic on radio and television is made. (eight references) (Author/CK)

Examines a computer-based corpus that provides the data for a comprehensive investigation of clitic climbing in written and spoken modern Spanish. The results are based on nearly 15,000 tokens with 32 different main verbs from a computer corpus of 3.5 million words from ten countries. Clitic climbing is more common in spoken than in written…