This response to a work, "Researching Language," from a field linguist working with little-to-unknown indigenous languages suggests that the work is welcome and should prove very useful in articulating the debate over power and method in social science research. (VWL)

Linguists should publicize the catastrophic rate at which languages are dying out without being replaced and attempt to stem language shift and murder through public arguments that the (1) barriers to communication can be positive, (2) bilingualism is normal, and (3) all languages are complex and adequate systems of communication. (15 references)…

Explores the correlation between notions of sacred language and territory in the ideology of a present-day Ultraorthodox Jewish group. Three cases were found that demonstrated a parallel between linguistic and territorial ideology, and point to an intrinsic link demonstrating an ongoing, active ideological tie, rather than a set of worn, petrified…

In an attempt to establish the differences between European and Brazilian Portuguese usage of the inflected infinitive, Brazilian speakers were asked to give their judgments on well-formed infinitival clauses in European Portuguese. (35 references) (JL)

Responds to counterarguments made by Haile and Mtenje (1988) concerning explicitness, arbitrariness, and complexity as it relates to earlier criticisms of an autosegmental analysis of Arabic verb morphology and the introduction of an alternative analysis presented in Hudson (1986). (eight references) (GLR)

Describes the benefits of and processes necessary for teaching Chinese as a functional language, focusing on the three teaching and learning objectives of goal orientation in curriculum planning; cultural/contextual clarity in instruction; and clear guidelines for evaluation. (CB)

Discusses the ethnographic investigation of a multilingual adolescent peer group in which various forms of second/other-language learner status had considerable social significance. The study illustrates the ways a repertoire of languages and language learner statuses serve as differentiated resources adolescents draw on to define community and…

Explores language as a cultural commodity through examination of the different values of rhetoric in Arabic- and English-speaking cultures, as evidenced by the language of the war against Iraq, and through examination of the role of language in determining economic status in France, the United States, and England. (18 references) (Author/CB)

Examines how the cultural revolution in China has changed, to some extent, the rules governing the use of address terms, discussing the close interrelation between the use of address terms and cultural values and how the change in mental outlook has led to the depreciation or appreciation of certain terms. (Author/CB)

Investigated functional differences between the accent-lending rise followed by sustained level pitch (10) and combined accent-lending rise and final rise (12) in Dutch. Thirty individuals were presented with short utterances bearing either a 10 or 12 contour. Results indicated that 10 is not readily interpreted as a question, so 10 may help…

Suggests that agent-focus verbs in Tzotzil are inverse, in the sense of Algonquian linguistics, and that their distribution is determined by the relative obviation status of agent and patient. Evidence for the analysis comes from syntactic constraints on agent-focus verbs and on their use in discourse. (Author/VWL)

Presents an account of developmental data regarding the acquisition of syllable types. Data come from a longitudinal corpus of phonetically transcribed speech of 12 children acquiring Dutch as their first language. (Author/VWL)

Proposes that the typologically uncommon combination of labial and palatal constriction in Twi has arisen from a convergence created by general patterns of coarticulation of consonants and vowels. This convergence has been systematized in a consonantal acoustic dimension partially independent from the original vocalic dimensions of contrast for…

Investigates the effects of pragmatic principles on the acquisition of the binding of English reflexives by adult Turkish second language (L2) learners. Compares pragmatically-biased and pragmatically-neutral sentences to determine whether pragmatic bias towards a non-local antecedent overrides the parameter setting of English and causes learners…

Hebrew words are composed of two interwoven morphemes: a triconsonantal root and a word pattern. Two experiments examined the effect of the root morpheme on word identification by assessing parafoveal preview benefit effects. Although the information of the preview was not consciously perceived, preview of the root's letters facilitated both…