Every language has its own key words, which reflect the core values of the culture. Consequently, cultures can be revealingly studied, compared, and explained to outsiders through their key words. But to be able to study, compare, and explain cultures in terms of their key words, we need a culture-independent analytical framework. A framework of this kind is provided by the natural semantic metalanguage developed by the author and colleagues over the last two decades. In the present article, the author explores and analyzes six Japanese concepts widely regarded as being almost more that any others culture-specific and culturally revealing – amae, enryo, wa, on, giri, and seishin – and shows how the use of the natural semantic metalanguage (based on universal semantic primitives) helps to make these concepts clear and how it facilitates better insight into Japanese culture and society (Japanese language, Japanese culture, cross-cultural semantics, key words, core values)

The address terms in China are largely based on the two-class distinction (the two classes being the proletariat and the bourgeoisie). The rules governing the use of address terms in China were strictly followed before the Cultural Revolution and are still followed to a certain extent now The Cultural Revolution has brought about the “depreciation” of certain address terms, and the new situation that has appeared since China opened its doors has changed some people's mental outlook and has caused some other address terms to “go up in value.” The author shows that the use of address terms and cultural values are closely interrelated. (Sociolinguistics, address terms, cultural values)

Several sociologists have noted the emergence of syncretic multiracial youth cultures in Britain and addressed its political significance. Most discussion has focused on Afro-Caribbean influences, but this article considers Asian involvement by analyzing the use of Panjabi by black and white adolescents in a mixed peer group. Informant reports suggested that Panjabi crossing was common, though assessments varied according to its contexts of occurrence. Analysis of spontaneous speech reduced these to two: agonistic interactions, where Panjabi played an auxiliary role in familiar playground practices (primarily among males); and bhangra, in which predominantly white females looked toward a nascent youth culture with Panjabi at its core. Despite major differences, bilingual sponsors and nonconversational structures were crucial in both settings. Opposition to establishment hierarchy might be more a part of the interracial meaning potential of Creole, but Panjabi was important, both in managing the divisions that cross-cut youth community and in extending horizons beyond the confines of local neighborhood experience. (Ethnography of communication, ethnic relations, adolescent multilingualism, language contact, code-switching, second language learning)

Scollon and Scollon (1979) claimed that the consonantal system of Chipewyan in Fort Chipewyan has been reduced to 16 segments from 39 influenced by Cree, a case of linguistic convergence. This conclusion was based on their incoherent and indiscriminate admixture of variable data. While there is no Chipewyan speaker whose consonantal inventory includes only 16 phonemes, there is ample evidence for the merger of two series of coronal affricates in an innovative system like in other Athapaskan languages that have had no intimate contact with Cree. That is, there is evidence for intralinguistic divergence, but not for interlinguistic convergence. Neither is there any evidence to support another major claim by the Scollons that the sibilant alternations in Chipewyan are correlated with “world views.” All the changes, including sibilant alternations and coronal mergers, recorded in Fort Chipewyan are those frequently observed in other Athapaskan communities. (Language contact, change, convergence, divergence, variability, obsolescence, register, sociolinguistic variable)

This article describes how it could be possible for two participants engaged in conversation to jointly produce a single syntactic unit such as a sentence. From an inspection of sentence types that are achieved through such joint production, it was determined that participants have available a single utterance construction format. This format, the compound turn-constructional unit format, may be a component of a socially construed syntax-for-conversation. It can be constituted by a wide range of interactionally relevant features of talk in interaction that reveal an emerging utterance as a multiple component turn-constructional unit. The compound turn-constructional unit format is primarily a resource for turn-taking. It can be used to project the next proper place for speaker change. However, it concomitantly provides the resources needed to complete the utterance-in-progress of another participant, thus allowing for the construction of a single sentence across the talk of two speakers. (Conversation, interaction, recognizable activity)