Aspects of the extent and nature of the influence of the Maori language on English in New Zealand are explored here within a broad sociolinguistic framework. The current sociolinguistic distribution of Maori and English in New Zealand society is described, and typical users and uses of the variety known as Maori English are identified. Characteristics of Maori English are outlined as background to a detailed examination of the distribution of three phonological features among speakers of Pakeha (European) and Maori background. These features appear to reflect the influence of the Maori language, and could be considered substratum features in a variety serving to signal Maori identity or positive attitudes toward Maori values. Moreover, Maori English may be a source of innovation in the New Zealand English (NZE) of Pakehas, providing features which contribute to the distinctiveness of NZE compared with other international varieties. (Social dialectology, ethnic identity, Maori English, New Zealand English, language change)

Southern Chinese dialects – Cantonese, Taiwanese, and Hakka – have received little official support from the governments of the nations where Chinese is spoken; they are not mutually intelligible with Mandarin, and are often deeply stigmatized. Although China's language wars have paralleled cold war hostilities, unofficial forces in the 1990s are rapidly enhancing dialect prestige, as an economic boom increasingly links the “Greater China” of the People's Republic, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. (Chinese dialects, Mandarin, Cantonese, Min, Hakka, bilingualism, Hong Kong, Taiwan, official language)

The characteristics of the language of legislation are derived from its role in the institution of law. An analysis of the institutional context reveals links among history, social function, participant roles, accepted goals of legislation, and language use. The nature of an Act of Parliament as a perpetual speech act creates a frozen authoritative text so that the language itself becomes a component of the law. If legislation is to be both stable and flexible, institutional communicative strategies are required to organise linguistic means to these sociolinguistic ends. (Law, legislation, register, speech acts, communicative competence, communicative strategies)

Written school advertising in Banaras, a North Indian city, creates correspondences between a language activity and central and peripheral places. In spoken discourse, complex relationships inhere between ways of describing languages as varieties and the sociological value that is said to exist in the fit between a language variety and its domain of use. Education is one such domain because the educational system itself is organized in popular discourse by medium, Hindi or English. In spoken discourse, Hindi- or English-medium schools can indicate central or peripheral dispositions. Advertising, however, includes a meaningful element unavailable to speakers in the flow of interaction – a distinction between lexical designation and its rendering in Devanagari or roman script. Therein lies its power to establish English as central and Hindi as peripheral.

This article argues that an androcentric Basque nationalist pedagogy is enacted in secondary schools in San Sebastian (Donostia), Spain. Textbooks present men as the exemplary Basque speakers and cultural agents by erasing women's contributions to Basque language and culture. Schools also contribute to a recursive language ideology, linking “authentic” ethnic identity, “naturalness,” and solidarity with vernacular Basque, of which the most pragmatically salient marker is the familiar form of address hi. Hi, in turn, indirectly indexes male speakers and masculinity, thereby creating an iconic relationship between authentic Basque identity, Basque culture, and masculinity. However, many women in Basque society have challenged this male privilege in various domains, thereby opening up the possibility of a Basque nation that embraces its female as well as its male members. As such, the Basque case has interesting implications for theorizing the relationships among language, gender, and nation.

This study examines the co-construction of five successful gatekeeping encounters. Drawing from a database of employment interviews, the emically derived concept of trustworthiness is identified as a key determiner in the success or failure of job candidates. Three critical, potentially problematic moves are identified: supplying inappropriate references, demanding too high a salary, and failing to account for gaps in one's work history. What distinguishes the successful from the failed interviews is not the frequency of these potentially damaging occurrences but the compensatory characteristics of those encounters in which trust (and subsequent success) is established. The successful candidates vary widely in terms of second language ability (in the case of nonnative speakers of English) and work experience. What they share, however, is the ability to present themselves positively, to establish rapport/solidarity with their interlocutor, and to demonstrate flexibility regarding job requirements and preferences. Both linguistic and nonlinguistic features are examined.I am grateful to Gabriele Kasper and Claire Kramsch, who provided me with numerous critical and insightful comments on earlier versions of this article. The data analyzed here come from the database that was used for my dissertation research (2001). Attempts have been made to reflect the constructive, and much appreciated, criticisms of two insightful anonymous reviewers of an earlier version of this article.

This article explores the effects of ethnic stereotypes, demographic shifts, and nationalism on language choice in the town of Dangriga, Belize. Dangriga was founded during the nineteenth century by members of an ethnic minority of West African and Native American heritage, known as the Garinagu or Garifuna. Today, it is a multilingual and multiethnic town populated primarily by Garinagu, Belizean Creoles, and both native-born and foreign-born Spanish speakers. In this context, language choice is in part a question of affiliation with a variety of ethnic and national identities. This article examines the manner in which ethnic and national stereotypes and images, as well as current demographic shifts in the Belizean population, affect language choice in multilingual contexts. Particular attention is paid to the position of young Garinagu vis-à-vis the Garifuna language and Belizean English Creole.

This article systematically explores the sequential contexts for making multiple requests during shop encounters. Based on video recordings in convenience stores in France and Finland, it describes the multimodal practices that buyers and sellers use to treat multiple requests as progressively building a global buying project. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate how multiple requests can be packed together, as relatively simple actions achieved simultaneously or successively in embodied and verbal ways either as subsequent contiguous sequences of actions, or as sequences of actions separated by inserted actions. This article also examines how requests are tied together, and how ‘late’ requests are fitted to the last sequential opportunities in the unfolding encounter. This analysis contributes to the study of commercial encounters and the buying process, as well as to the understanding of sequence organization. It likewise contributes to comparative analyses by discussing the similarities and specificities of this activity across cultural contexts and in different time periods. (Requests, shop encounters, social interaction, multimodality, French, Finnish)

With special attention to the use of unconventional practices and pictorial signs in casual letter writing, this article shows how young Japanese women effectively exploit affect-laden shape, form, and function in order to establish intimate and solidary relationships. They rely on both conventional and unconventional aspects of Japanese orthography, encoding affect specific to the given context and merging spoken with written modes of self-representation. In so doing, they seem to draw on diverse “frames” of written language, and to manipulate symbolic means of association and integration for achieving reciprocity. These features not only provide the basis for reciprocity, but may also suggest a new mode of literacy caused by social change. (Writing, literacy, affect, Japanese, pictorial signs, letter-writing)

This article brings the critical turn in linguistics—with its current scepticism towards essentialised languages and bias for languaging—under critical evaluation. It does so by bringing it face-to-face with the local-knowledge turn in sociolinguistics that investigates local knowledge and local epistemologies, held by language users themselves, to understand sociolinguistic phenomena. This article analyses whether and how the epistemologies inherent to language, mother tongue, and languaging hold relevance in local metalinguistic talk in Malaysia. Focus group discussions with ethnic Malay, Chinese, and Indian youth reveal that languaging through Bahasa Rojak is already firmly embedded in local epistemologies for communicating across ethnolinguistic divides and fostering interethnic inclusiveness. An essentialised view of language, however, remains vital to any holistic sociolinguistic research in Malaysia in culturally specific ways that do not conflict with languaging. The article therefore supports arguments that we ought not to disregard mother tongues in the interests of critical linguistics. (Critical linguistics, mother tongue, languaging, linguistic culture, Malaysia, folk linguistics)*

Upon engaging in a speech event, participants mutually try to create the most appropriate speech register for that occasion. Special formality-marking particles, pronominals, names, kin terms, titles, and pragmatic particles are some linguistic signs that are available for Thai speakers for this purpose. Through varied frequencies and combinations of different signs, various shades of speech register are created. The type and quality of speech register are largely predictable when the participants are familiar with the speech situation because of their past interactional history, or with the protocol required for a particular type of interaction. However, when the participants are thrown into an unfamiliar situation with strangers, they must find a middle ground in their register and adjust their speech behavior to achieve a balanced speech interaction. In this essay, we analyze four different conversations, both quantitatively and qualitatively, in order to observe how speech register is created in different types of interaction, thereby going beyond simple taxonomic description of sociolinguistic signs.

The two most conspicuous phenomena reported on dying languages are (a) structural (and stylistic) simplifications and (b) dramatic increases of variability due to incongruent and idiosyncratic “change.” The phonological data from two Athapaskan languages, as well as other published data (Dorian 1973, 1978; Hill 1978; Schmidt 1985a), demonstrate that underlying the apparent degeneration of the system there is an orderly progression which is viewed as a retarded process of language acquisition. Different semispeakers reach different levels of maturity due to different degrees of retardation, consequently increasing variability and complexity for the total system, whereas each idiolect undergoes systematic developmental stages albeit retarded, decreasing eventually structural (and stylistic) profusion. Therefore, a dying language mirrors the successive stages of ontogenesis. (Historical linguistics, language acquisition, language death, language contact, bilingualism, sociolinguistics)

This article presents the results of a comparative study of two Hispanic communities in New York City: Washington Heights and Elmhurst/Corona. Our data on language proficiency, language use, and attitudes were gathered using a sociolinguistic questionnaire. However, the study benefited from the interactive process established between the researchers and the communities which they studied and in which they live and work.

Our data are analyzed along three dimensions. First, we compare data for the two Spanish-speaking communities. We discuss how the social status and the ethnic configuration of the community affect linguistic and attitudinal behaviors. Then, we analyze the data according to national origin. We discuss how the five nationality groups included in our study – Central Americans, Cubans, Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, and South Americans – differ in language proficiency, language use, and language attitudes. Finally, we compare the data for Dominicans in Washington Heights to that of Dominicans in Elmhurst/Corona. We examine how national origin and the language surround of the ethnic community interact in order to determine language use and attitudes. Some of the findings here differ from what may be supposed of such cases.

We suggest socioeducational and language policies for Hispanics in the United States based on the results of this study. (Sociology of language, sociolinguistics, language planning, ethnic studies, sociology, education of language minorities, language education, Central American, Cuban, Dominican, Puerto Rican, South American Spanish in New York City)

Berbice Dutch is one of two recently rediscovered Dutch-based Creole languages spoken in Guyana. It is spoken in the county of Berbice, which corresponds to the former Dutch colony of Berbice, founded in the early seventeenth century.

This language possesses certain features that make it unique in comparison to other European language-based Creoles spoken in the Atlantic region. Because of these unique features, it represents a promising test case for the presence of substrate influence, and as such, is of obvious relevance for the present creolist debate between substratists and universalists.

The article discusses four different conceivable hypotheses to explain the origin of Berbice Dutch. The first of these assumes that a mixed Dutch–Kalaịarḅ trading jargon was developed in Africa as a result of the operations of the slave traders, and that this formed the basis of Berbice Dutch.

The second hypothesis depends critically on the ethnic homogeneity of the slaves. This hypothesis would assume that the planters/overseers in Berbice attempted to learn those aspects of Eastern Ịjọ that could be utilized on the plantations.

The third hypothesis assumes that Berbice Dutch is genetically descended from Eastern Ịjọ, but that this is not obvious due to large-scale relexification.

The fourth hypothesis assumes that Eastern Ịjọ was replaced by Berbice Dutch under the catalysing influence of (creole) Dutch, rather as the fully inflected Romani language was replaced in England by the creolized Anglo-romani under the catalysing influence of English.

The hypothesis that is selected as probably the best is the fourth, where it is argued that Berbice Dutch was adopted as the language of the Berbice slaves because it offered a means of expressing the identity of a newly created “ethnic” group.

The most important moral that can be drawn from this article is that the development of each Creole must be examined individually. Only after such an examination has taken place for a significant number of Creoles will it be possible to define what is meant by creolization. In addition to the detailed linguistic examination required, it will also be necessary to carry out detailed (socio)historical work demonstrating if possible that the linguistic sequence of events is supported by the available historical data. (Creole language, substrate, Ịjọ language, ethnicity, mixed language)

Unlike class or ethnicity, gender-based differences are assumed to result from social difference, not distance, yet across multiple societies, researchers find that gender separation is practiced to varying degrees. Such separation creates distance. Preference for same-gender affiliations emerges around age three, peaks in middle childhood, and lessens during the teen years, yet persists in the workplace and later life. Though reasons for this are many, Thorne (1993:51) identified one finding in these terms: “Where age separation is present, gender separation is more likely to occur.” Because age segregation varies with stage of life, one may predict that gender segregation would wax and wane across the lifespan. This study investigates this prediction with three sociolinguistic variables of Puerto Rican Spanish. In turn, it explores the prediction across other varieties of Spanish, German, and English, focusing on variables that are stable, undergoing change, or in the end stage of loss.I want to send very special muchísimas gracias to Miriam Meyerhoff and William Labov for critical, insightful, and engaged readings of an earlier version of this research. Over the past two years, I have presented portions of this research at various conferences. In these contexts, on more than one occasion, Greg Guy, Gillian Sankoff, and Shahrzad Mahootian have provided both critical and supportive comments. I admire and love all these people. Finally, I thank Jane Hill and the two reviewers whose very useful comments called for clarification and qualification. I appreciate their attention very much. None of these individuals is responsible for shortcomings in the research. I hope any shortcomings here will stimulate long-term research elsewhere. Besos a Diana González-Cameron, mi esposa.

The particle one of Singapore English is widely used in Singapore culture, but it is little mentioned and its invariant meaning has not been described, so that not much is known about its meaning and the cultural norms it reflects. This article provides a detailed semantic analysis of this particle, articulates its meaning in the form of a reductive paraphrase using natural semantic metalanguage, and argues that its use reflects Singapore English speakers' tendency to speak definitively and exaggeratedly. The discussion of Singaporean speech norms reflected by this particle includes reference to relevant Anglo English speech norms for comparison and contrast.I am indebted to Anna Wierzbicka for her detailed comments on an earlier version of this article. I am grateful to Jane Hill, Peter Tan and another, anonymous reviewer for their very generous and constructive overall feedback on this paper. I have also benefited from stimulating discussions with Cynthia Allen and Avery Andrews on the topic of relative clauses and the syntax of the nominal one. Jane McGary provided valuable editorial assistance and native Anglo English speaker intuition in regard to some examples. Last but not least, I would like to express my gratitude toward writer Hwee Hwee Tan for giving me a soft copy of her manuscript to do electronic searches.

Code-switching from the Fijian language into a variety of Hindi is commonly used for joking among indigenous Fijians. Examples of this codeswitching are described here, and its role in Fijian joking relationships is outlined. A survey of code-switching used for humor in other societies shows that code-switching may be a signal for joking, that the switching itself may be considered humorous, and that the variety to which one switches may be used for humorous mockery or parody. Three different psychological approaches to the study of humor throw some light on why code-switching into Hindi is funny to Fijians. A final discussion examines code-switching in relation to both unintegrated borrowing and style-shifting. (Code-switching, borrowing, humor, joking, Fijian, Hindi)

This article explores the degree and kind of lability that occurs throughout the life span of the individual during ongoing rapid change in the quotative system. Two comparative analyses trace speakers' use of be like across a shorter and a longer time span. Trend data reveal that the robust change is arrested in the middle age brackets; speakers in their thirties seem to display ‘retrograde movement’ (Sankoff & Wagner 2006) away from the community-wide change. This finding could be interpreted as incipient age-grading. A small-scale panel sample collected forty-two years after the initial interview suggests that some older speakers participate in the trend, albeit at very low frequencies. This finding, while exploratory at the moment, might be interpreted as indicative of ‘life-span change’ (Sankoff 2005). A conception of the change in progress in the quotative system as monotonous would thus both under and overestimate the rate of change. (Change across the life span, age-grading, retrograde change, life-span change, quotation, style, language ideologies)*

To investigate discourse and interactive functions of quote formula + hey + pseudoquotation, that is, invented quotation, in current English communication, tokens were collected from public and commercial broadcasts and miscellaneous readings during a four-month period. In addition, all instances of hey with context were extracted from the Brown Corpus of American English. Only 26 possible tokens, the majority from radio and television, were located; one instance in Brown indicates existence as early as 1961. A speaker uses quote formula + hey + pseudoquotation to dramatize and thereby give emphasis to an important point (in these examples, generally in an expository discourse), a practice reported for both sophisticated and folk discourse. Instead of a rhetorical question, the device makes a rhetorical answer to an unasked question. Although pseudoquotation can be found either without discourse marker or with other discourse marker, hey is an appropriate marker for pseudoquotation, simultaneously to mark an important point in a discourse and to bind listeners to the ongoing interaction by (re)capturing their attention. (Discourse markers, conversational interaction, pragmatics, dramatization, hey, quotation)

This paper documents attitudes toward English, Spanish, and Spanish-English Code-switching in Juarez, Mexico, the oldest and largest city along the Mexican–U.S. border. It refutes the finding of related work which has shown two distinct orientations – integrative and instrumental – toward English as a foreign and as a second language, but supports various assumptions regarding the relationship between attitudes and use and the impact of the local milieu on language attitudes. It also explores attitudes toward correctness and sentiments of language loyalty, and highlights the influence of language loyalty on perceptions of Spanish-English Code-switching. Eighty-five Juarez residents were interviewed. (Language attitudes, so-ciolinguistics, Hispanic linguistics, border studies, ethnic studies, Latin American studies)