This article examines evolving linguistic practices in the Spanish-Rapa Nui (Polynesian) bilingual community of Easter Island, Chile, and in particular the transformation of Rapa Nui Spanish speech styles. The island's rapid integration into the national and world economy and a vibrant indigenous movement have profoundly influenced the everyday lives of island residents. Although community-wide language shift toward Spanish has been evident over the past four decades, the Rapa Nui have in this period also expanded their speech style repertoire by creating Rapa Nui Spanish and syncretic Rapa Nui speech styles. Predominantly Spanish-speaking Rapa Nui children who have imperfect command over Rapa Nui are today adopting a new Rapa Nui Spanish style. Ethnographic and linguistic analysis of recorded face-to-face verbal interactions are utilized to analyze the development, structure, and social significance of Rapa Nui Spanish varieties and to locate them within the complex process of language shift.I wish to express my appreciation to the Rapa Nui and other residents of Easter Island for so kindly welcoming me into their homes and allowing me to participate in their daily life. I would also like to thank my research assistant, Ivonne Calderón Haoa, who helped me record and transcribe speech events. This article is based on field research supported by the National Science Foundation (Grant No. SBR-9313658), the Wenner-Gren Foundation (Grant No. 5670), the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Yale University, and the Institute for Intercultural Studies. Parts of this article were presented at the 2004 meeting of the Linguistic Society of America and the 2004 meeting of the Association for Social Anthropology in Oceania. I thank those who offered comments on earlier versions, in particular two anonymous reviewers, Jane Hill, Robert and Nancy Weber, Christine Jourdan, Niko Besnier, Jean Mitchell, and Lamont Lindstrom.

This article examines the tense system of Samaná English, a lineal descendant of early nineteenth-century American Black English. Independent evidence from quantitative phonological, grammatical, and narrative analyses reveals the existence of a past tense marker comparable in surface form, function, and distribution to that of Standard English. In addition, we establish the presence of a narrative Historical Present, thus far unattested in Black English Vernacular (BEV), which appears in proportions and patterns of alternation with the past tense nearly identical to those associated with middle-class white American narrators. Comparison with varieties of contemporary BEV and English-based creoles shows a structural resemblance between Samaná English and the former, but not the latter. These findings have important implications for understanding the development of contemporary BEV. (Linguistic variation, narrative analysis, Black English Vernacular, pidgin and creole linguistics, Dominican Republic)

This article deals with the use of Hawai'i Creole English (HCE) as a written language in a literary or poetic function. It is argued that HCE's lack of what Kloss 1967 calls Abstand ‘autonomy, distance’ presents certain technical problems for writers, and acts as a barrier to further Ausbau (also Kloss's term, ‘elaboration’) in the literary domain, particularly in the novel. Because it has no writing system of its own, HCE is represented as if it were a deviant or non-standard variety of English. In other words, HCE is forced to be a literary dialect rather than a literary language. Some practical problems connected with the elaboration process are examined, such as standardization and related theoretical issues associated with narrative technique. The article concludes by considering the likelihood of successful resolution of these problems within the current political situation in the Hawaiian Islands. (Hawai'i, pidgin, creole, minority language, standardization, Abstand, Ausbau, orthography, literature, narrative, genre)

In arguing for the necessity of gender-based language reform, feminist theorists have generally assumed that language is not a neutral and transparent means of representing reality. Rather, language is assumed to codify an androcentric worldview. While sexist language clearly reflects sexist social practices, the continuing existence of such practices throws into question the possibility of successful language reform. Because linguistic meanings are, to a large extent, socially constructed and constituted, terms initially introduced to be nonsexist and neutral may lose their neutrality in the mouths of a sexist speech community and/or culture. In this article we first examine the way in which nonsexist innovations have been appropriated by a sexist speech community. More specifically, we examine uses of neutral generics such as chairperson, spokesperson; singular they; he or she; and neutral titles such as Ms.; and we demonstrate that these terms are often not used nor interpreted in their intended (neutral) way. Rather, they are used in ways that maintain sexist stereotypes and distinctions. Then we examine the use of feminist linguistic innovations as they appear in the print media. We demonstrate the extent to which such terms get redefined and depoliticized by a speech community that is not predominantly feminist and is often sexist. (Language and gender, language and race, nonsexist language, gender-based language reform, neutral generics, discourse analysis)

In our research, we wish to illuminate different types of discursive intentions which are structured into discourse via the verb inflections and auxiliaries, together with their entailed social effects. In the present report, we examine the use of the simple present by two three-year-olds, and argue that analyses in terms of tense or aspect are not adequate to account for its use. One needs to recognize the way in which the form implicitly refers to norms and thereby entails a type of impersonal motivation – especially as it is just this feature of the use of this form that structures the ongoing activity into a nondialogic, normative activity. (Simple present, normativity, subjectivity, activity-types, nondialogic discourse, the constitutive role of language, American English)

In the airline cockpit it is critical to say and do things at the appropriate time and in the appropriate order. When a pilot is responsible for initiating a next action but has not yet done so, the pilot not responsible can prompt or perform the action with talk that is prefaced with and. Rather than make conspicuous another's possible lapse, and-prefaced talk presents the not-yet-initiated action as timely and merely occurring routinely next in sequence. And occurs in talk for monitoring another's conduct and for maintaining accountability in the temporal organization of work by situating actions acceptably in time. This article points to the value of seeing grammatical forms as consequential for just how work gets done in particular settings, and especially for identifying local means of creating order for agenda-based activities. The article analyzes transcriptions of pilots interacting in the cockpit on actual scheduled passenger flights.

The structure of natural conversations in first-grade classrooms is the focus of this inquiry. Analyses of a particular type of discourse, namely, connected conversations initiated and sustained by questioning, suggest that the probability that a conversation will be continued may be expressed as a simple exponential function. The formula, pi = ari−1, generates a curve of theoretically-expected rates of successive questions in a series that closely matches observed rates. The formula is based on the application of a constant ratio, that is, the ratio of rates within each pair of adjacent questions is the same throughout the series: p2:p1=p3:p2 = p4:p3. … Thus, it appears that the probability of a ‘next’ question following an exchange that contains a previous question remains constant through the length of the discourse series. In other words, the probability of a question is independent of the temporal location of an utterance in this type of connected conversation. The analyses suggest further that the model of a finite Markov chain, that is, of a particular type of stochastic process, may be applicable to certain features of a discourse. (Conversational analysis, sequencing in exchanges, U.S. English in first-grade classrooms.)

This article analyzes the reasons for and the effects of the language shift in Zimbabwe represented by the increasing use of pan-ethnic lingua francas, or urban vernaculars, of local origin. It is suggested that essentialist/primordialist assumptions about “indigenous” languages that feature prominently in current accounts of language endangerment should be made more complex by understanding their historical and social origins. In Zimbabwe, this means understanding the origins of Shona and Ndebele during the colonial period as the product of a two-stage process: codification of dialects by missionaries, and creation of a unified standard by the colonial regime. In the postcolonial context, these languages and the ethnic identities they created/reified are giving way to language use that indexes not ethnic affiliation but urbanization. The article adduces data showing that as Zimbabweans move with relative ease across language boundaries, urban vernaculars express their shared social experience of living in postcolonial urban environments.The authors would like to thank Xingren Xu for his technical support during the writing and revision of this article.

This study investigates framing in discourse while considering spontaneous role-play between a young child (age 2 years 11 months) and her mother, wherein the participants reverse roles from real life and reenact shared prior experiences. Data consist of two tape-recorded naturally occurring pretend-play episodes and the real-life interactions on which they are based, all of which took place at home. Analysis of the role-play episodes illustrates how framing occurs from moment to moment in interaction in this context, showing that the participants use both play and non-play utterances collaboratively to evoke, maintain, and embed multiple play frames with increasingly specific, and at times blended, metamessages. By linking the role-play interactions back to their real-life counterparts, I explore the relationship between framing and “prior text.” This analysis adds to our understanding of framing by showing how frames are layered in discourse. Additionally, it links frames theory to the notion of intertextuality by illustrating how prior text can be used as a resource for framing.

This article explores the relationship between the status of Javanese women and the politeness or formality of their speech. I examine the hypothesis that, cross-culturally, women will speak more politely than men as an expression of their secondary status. Ethnographic research from East Java reveals that Javanese women are required to be more polite within the family where they receive less polite speech and offer more. In the wider context of Javanese culture, however, it is Javanese men who strive to cultivate politeness for the purpose of expressing their superior status and authority. The potentially coercive or political power of politeness in Javanese is related to the ambiguity of the polite codes themselves, which may be used to express both deference or humility on the one hand and status, refinement, and power on the other. Speech patterns are linked to a number of social-structural variables: patterns of socialization, models of appropriate male and female linguistic behavior, and men's and women's social roles and typical spheres of interest. Where, as in Java, polite codes are associated with public power and control, we should expect that men may be especially concerned with the cultivation of polite styles of speech. (Politeness, gender roles, linguistic socialization, Indonesia)

Discourse structure in Central Alaskan Yupik Eskimo (CAY) narrative and conversation is examined, and a general notion of rhetorical structure is proposed, growing out of recent work in the poetics of Native American oral literature. Rhetorical structure in a given language would consist of prosodically and intonationally signaled phonological phrasing along with whatever other significant formal features consistently pattern or interact with it (minimally surface syntactic constituency, typically also the system of sentence adverbs and conjunctions, further intonational features, and patterns of parallelism and repetition). Findings for CAY as well as other works in the literature indicate at least four important communicative functions for rhetorical structure in addition to its role in verbal art: organization of information, expression of affective meaning, indexing of genre, and regulation of dialogic interaction. (Discourse, syntax–phonology–discourse interaction, ethnopoetics; Native America, Alaska, Yupik Eskimo)

The Catalogue of Endangered Languages (ELCat) is the central feature of the Google-powered Endangered Languages Project (endangeredlanguages.com), which is a venue for sharing information and resources on the world's endangered languages and the knowledge contained in them. One key feature of ELCat is a quantitative measure that can be used to understand the level of endangerment of any language. Quantitative measurements are needed to compare language vitality across a variety of contexts around the globe, and can be used as a parallel to measurements of other forms of threats to biocultural diversity. This article addresses the development of the Language Endangerment Index (LEI). Based on four factors (intergenerational transmission, absolute number of speakers, speaker number trends, and domains of use), this index is different from other methods of assessment in several ways, especially as it can be used even if limited information is available. (Language endangerment, vitality, intergenerational transmission, speaker numbers, domains of language use)*

Studies of address forms have almost always concentrated on a single set of rules, as they would be used by one idealized speaker. We proposed instead to examine the use of address pronouns in Italy as a function of the classical sociological parameters of age, sex and social class. A modified version of the Brown and Gilman questionnaire was administered in interviews with 117 Italian adults. Results indicate a powerful age—class interaction in overall degree of formality. Young upper class Ss are by far the least formal of the social groups — a particularly interesting finding, since Brown and Gilman's original study was drawn entirely from this population. Lower class youth are the most formal, with older Ss falling in between. Most Italians are likely to expect to receive the same address form that they give; the only clearly functional non-reciprocal relationships involve differences in age rather than status. The relationship of the results to political measures are also discussed. Several issues are examined from the point of view of sociolinguistic ‘ideals’ tapped by the questionnaire, vs. actual behavior in social settings. (Address forms (T/V pronouns); social class, age, and sex differences; Italy (Rome).)

Although an increasing number of sociolinguistic researchers consider functions of voice qualities as stylistic features, few studies consider cases where voice qualities serve as the primary signs of speech registers. This article addresses this gap through the presentation of a case study of Lachixío Zapotec speech registers indexed though falsetto, breathy, creaky, modal, and whispered voice qualities. I describe the system of contrastive speech registers in Lachixío Zapotec and then track a speaker on a single evening where she switches between three of these registers. Analyzing line-by-line conversational structure I show both obligatory and creative shifts between registers that co-occur with shifts in the participant structures of the situated social interactions. I then examine similar uses of voice qualities in other Zapotec languages and in the two unrelated language families Nahuatl and Mayan to suggest the possibility that such voice registers are a feature of the Mesoamerican culture area. (Voice quality, register, performance, metapragmatics, Mesoamerica, Zapotecan, Mayan, Nahuatl)*

Most researchers of Arabic sociolinguistics assume the existence of a sociolinguistic continuum with a local vernacular at the bottom and the standard variety at the top. Those researchers seem to equate the terms “prestige” and “standard”; consequently, they tend to consider Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) as the only prestige variety in all settings. This article presents evidence showing that if an adequate description of sociolinguistic variation of spoken Arabic is to be met, it is necessary to posit not only one standard speech variety, MSA, but also other prestigious local or regional varieties which act as local spoken standards competing with MSA in informal settings. It will be shown in the reported cases that in certain contexts speakers tend to switch from their local forms – though these latter may be identical to MSA – to other local features characteristic of other dominant social groups and that happen to be marked [–MSA], These local prestigious norms act like the standard spoken norms in informal settings. (Diglossic model, prestigious varieties, stereotypes, dominant social groups, competing standards, spoken Arabic).

This article analyzes a set of anti-immigrant jokes with which Jay Leno entertained his national television audience in 2006, when the U.S. public was focused on unprecedented demonstrations urging justice for immigrants. Leno adroitly mocks immigrants and their cause to give his audience emotional release by distancing them from immigrants. It is argued that political comedy can be an insidious discursive practice that reduces its audience’s critical judgment as it signifies social boundaries. It should be carefully scrutinized because, with a few laughs, Leno can steer sentiment about public policy and instantiate divisiveness for an audience of 6 million who, in the words of Leno’s official website, “are drifting off to dreamland.” (Humor, political comedy, late-night television, immigrant rights marches)*

Narratives in interviews involve the alignment of two chronotopes (Bakhtin's term, literally ‘time-space’) or what has traditionally been termed the narrated and narrating events. While narrators are expected to separate the there-and-then narrated-event chronotope from the here-and-now narrating-event chronotope, tropic forms of coeval alignment exist that erase or blur the line between the two events, as if they were occurring in the same time and place. In this article I argue for the need to map these shifting alignments in interviews. This article begins with, but then moves beyond, the familiar case of the “historical present,” where narrators shift into using nonpast temporal deixis for past events. Drawing first on an oral narrative from Italy, I show how resources besides the historical present can produce similar alignment effects. In order to demonstrate more extreme forms of coeval alignment, I then compare these data with those from a Senegalese narrator in Dakar who transposes participants “into” his stories. Through this comparison I illustrate how cross-chronotope alignment reveals the way narrators manage the relationship between story and event in interviews. Mapping these shifting alignments can help illuminate the emergent relations between interviewer and interviewee and hence show how stories reflect and shape the interview context in which they occur. (Narrative, interview, chronotope, historical present, Italian, Senegal)*

School students (15–16 years) in six regions of Wales were recorded telling stories in their local English dialects. Some of these narratives were used as samples representing the main English dialect regions in Wales. Comparable groups of students (n = 169) and a group of teachers (n = 47) rated the audio-recorded speakers on a number of scales of affiliation, status, and Welshness. Statistical analysis of their ratings, employing cluster analysis and multidimensional scaling, made it possible to detect some of the competing or additive effects of dialect and narrative features. Judgments of “Welshness” of the speaker/narratives were grounded in the regional dialect properties; but other judgments, such as the likability of the speakers, tended to draw on features of both dialect and narrative. In addition, comparison of students and teachers revealed differences in their evaluations of particular dialect communities and the characteristics of the narratives. The findings illustrate the importance of approaching the analysis of dialect variation within the broader context of speech and discourse performance.

This paper surveys and illustrates ten years of research done on sociophonological variation in Viennese German from a methodological point of view. It shows how variants of the same word form are collected and analyzed and how two types of rules are differentiated: (1) phonostylistic (optional) phonological rules of the fast/casual and formal hyperarticulate speech, both of Standard Austrian German and Viennese German Dialect; and (2) bidirectional input switch rules between these two strata. Psycholinguistic lab experiments are summarized, which vouch for the psychological reality of sociolinguistic concepts used. A theory of sociopsychological speech situations is described as well as the application of quantitative and qualitative sociolinguistic methods used. A major illustration of our approach is taken from the sociolinguistic study of defendants at court. The conclusion summarizes major claims. (Courtroom discourse, hermeneutics, phonological theory, phonological variation, psycholinguistic experiments, qualitative and quantitative methods, sociophonology, speech situations, style repertoires, switching, text linguistics, therapeutic discourse; Standard Austrian German, Viennese German.)