Contemporary digital media is characterized by a cultural logic of participation that encourages sharing, confession, phatic communication, and an emphasis on the visual. In this techno-cultural milieu, self-presentation has become a key mode of communication, and has enabled ordinary individuals to attain a measure of celebrity status. A key component of being a microcelebrity entails developing a consistent persona that is recognizable and unique. How such persona can be studied from the sociolinguistic perspective of stance and style is the focus of this article. We combined corpus linguistic and qualitative discourse analytic methods to examine a small corpus of videos produced by Chinese online celebrity, Papi Jiang. The article presents key lexico-grammatical, discourse-level, and non-linguistic resources that are analyzed as stance markers that together contribute to Papi's intense, critical-satirical performative style. The significance of the findings is discussed in relation to performance, performativity, and critique in digital media. (Persona, microcelebrity, style, performance, stance)*

This study analyzes the social evaluations of the Andalusian Spanish ceceo merger and its split, distinción. A matched-guise experiment was created by digitally manipulating spontaneous speech from twelve Western Andalusian speakers, varying only in syllable-initial [s̪] and [θ] for <s> and <z,ci,ce>, creating ceceo and distinción guises. Based on 221 listeners from Huelva and Lepe, Spain, mixed effects linear regression models found that speakers with distinción guises were evaluated as being of higher social status, more urban, and more formal than speakers with ceceo guises. Additionally, listeners' comments referred not only to the sounds and graphemes, but also to the merger itself and its social connotations. The implications are two-fold: (i) consonant mergers may be subject to more overt social evaluation than vocalic mergers; and (ii) a merger can acquire social meaning, and this meaning in turn, may promote its split. (Mergers, splits, sociolinguistic perception, language attitudes, Andalusian Spanish, sociophonetics, dialect levelling, ceceo, distinción)*

I shall argue that adoption of linguistics at institutions of higher learning in its present international disciplinary form, and in its expression through the medium of English (because English is a major foreign or second language in much of the world and the by far dominant language for the discipline of linguistics), can be contrary to the public good in less developed countries (LDCs) and emerging speech communities. Linguistics in its current international disciplinary form serves needs different from those of emerging speech communities, where a new language treatment system ought to be created by a new cadre of caretakers of the community's language resources. (Language planning; developing countries; linguistics as an international discipline; English)

Mental categorization schemes, such as noun classification systems, can be productive sites for examining how experience is meaningfully and culturally structured through metaphorical and metonymic associations. Pohnpeian possessive classifiers not only constitute cultural categories of rank and power relations, but dynamically re-sort or re-classify these categories through honorific speech. Linguistic and interactional data are here combined with ethnographic data about Pohnpeian society and cultural beliefs, particularly notions about the meaning and construction of ranked social relationships, to show how micro-interactions which index status are linked both to larger cultural ideologies about power and, metaphorically, to the experiential domain. (Pohnpei, Micronesia, honorifics, status, metaphor, possessive constructions)

This article documents discursive and social change currently taking place in contemporary Hong Kong during the transitional period leading up to the change of sovereignty from Britain to China. It does so by means of a detailed analysis of a political meeting, involving the British Hong Kong governor, Chris Patten, and members of the Hong Kong public. The meeting took place in October, 1992, a day after Patten introduced proposals to widen the democratic franchise. Patten used the meeting, the first time a Hong Kong governor had made himself openly accountable to the public at large, to demonstrate the sort of democratic discourse for which the reform proposals were designed to create a framework.

The analysis focuses on two main ways Patten highlighted the democratic nature of the discourse: the use of mise en abyme, or a “play within a play” structure, and the downplaying of overt markers of hierarchy and power asymmetry. Although Patten's aim was to demonstrate openness and accountability, his ultimate control of the discourse belied the democratic agenda he ostensibly promoted. The analysis consequently also focuses on the manipulative dimension of Patten's discourse. The conclusion considers to what extent the meeting might mark a real shift to a more democratic order of public discourse in Hong Kong. (Discourse analysis, power and language, social change, indexicals, involvement, manipulative discourse, mise en abyme, order of discourse, political discourse, turn-taking).

There is nothing controversial about Keller's assertion that human beings operate according to a powerful maxim which he renders as “Talk like the others talk.” This is self-evidently true (although we could of course discuss precisely who “the others” might be). If it were not true, there would be, say, no local dialects. The fact that everyone who has grown up in the same community speaks in the same way therefore, in a sense, needs no discussion. It is always the case, as near enough as makes no difference.

An examination of recent changes in the color terminology of a Lurispeaking pepole in Iran shows a strong cultural basis of perception, categorization, and manipulation of colors. Compared to the familiar evolutionary model of the development of color categories, this case constitutes a slight deviation in the position of the colors brown and purple and suggests a qualification of the respective evolutionary stages as well as an expansion of the model's predictive hypotheses. (Color terms, evolutionary universals in linguistic change, Lur language, Iran.)

The Budget is a newspaper which has served Amish communities for over a hundred years by disseminating community news to Amish settlements across North America. The main feature of this newspaper are newsletters written by volunteers from local Amish settlements, called “scribes,” who report news and happenings from their church districts. In this study the generic characteristics of the newsletters are identified, as is their role in the reproduction of Amish cultural values. The newsletters display generic consistency demonstrated in the predictable location, form, and content of the components of the newsletter. Scribes' reports of community news report events which are central to maintaining the importance of the interpersonal basis of Amish community life, and serve to maintain those items as reportable and noteworthy topics in the Amish communicative economy. (Amish, genre, written communication)

Aligned with renewed commitments to class critique in sociolinguistics and discourse studies, I examine premium as a floating signifier. My initial semiotic landscape analysis demonstrates how this word is attached to any number of goods/services, coaxing people into a sense of distinction and superior status. These language games occur most vividly in my second analytic site—Premium Economy—where status is fabricated as tangibly but not too obviously distinct from Economy while preserving the prestige of Business. From a corpus of over forty international airlines’ promotional materials, I pinpoint three key rhetorics underpinning Premium Economy: extraction, excess, and comparison. My analysis locates premium as a quintessential form of symbolic violence (Bourdieu 1997/2000) deployed for controlling people by seducing, flattering, and enchanting them. The anxious bourgeoisie are thereby ‘joyfully enlisted’ (Lordon 2014) into the aspirational logics of elitism, all animated by the tenacious neoliberal ideologies of a supposedly post-class world. (Elite discourse, post-class ideology, floating signifiers, Frédéric Lordon ‘premium’, Premium Economy)*

The present study examines two unprompted versions of the same story, related by a mother and daughter in separate sociolinguistic interviews. Following a quantitative intraspeaker comparison of their use of grammatical features associated with Appalachian English within the entirety of their interviews, this study undertakes a close reading of the narratives (along with additional passages from the daughter) to demonstrate the manner in which the two women construct their identities as “mother” and as “other” through conversational narrative and the use of local dialect features. Specifically, this article addresses the use of regional grammatical variables to enact speaker stances toward mothering, focusing on two women's independent recollections of a single incident and how these narratives dialogically construct the (m)other. (Language variation, Appalachian English, stancetaking, motherhood)*

A complete course of psychotherapy provided extensive information about natural speech patterns of a male psychiatrist and a female patient. Contrary to assertions of the deferential function of tag questions, the patient's use of this form increased as she gained in self-confidence and improved her psychological adjustment. Qualitative analysis of the type, antecedents, and consequences of tag questions in sessions at the beginning and end of the therapy shows how the patient's use of the form reflects her growing independence. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of verbal interaction offer complementary benefits, and a two-stage research method is advocated. (Psychotherapeutic discourse, tag questions, pragmatics, sociolinguistics, psychotherapy process)

Quotative be like is a much discussed variable linguistic feature recruited in this investigation in order to revisit the hypothesis of linguistic diffusion (Labov 2007) predicting re-ordering of original patterns by L2 populations. As a sociocognitively salient variant spreading above the level of conscious awareness, be like has been appropriated by adult speakers from two distinctive L2 English ecologies with a high degree of precision, a finding previously not reported in studies exploring the acquisition of structured variation. In this article, I explain how, supported by frequency and constraint complexity, sociocognitive salience may have contributed to the generally accurate replication of the variable grammar for be like and, by this token, how it can inform existing models of language change. (Sociocognitive salience, linguistic diffusion, L2 acquisition of structured variation, variationist sociolinguistics, World Englishes, be like)

This article explores religious impact on language maintenance and language shift in two Hakka communities in Malaysia. While research has shown a trend towards language shift in these communities, whether religious institutions can play a role in heritage language maintenance remained unclear. The key findings are as follows: (i) language use patterns differ among various religious groups; (ii) this difference is due mainly to religious practices, that is, whether a heritage language is used as the ‘language of religion’; and (iii) most religious institutions, except Taoist temples and Basel churches, seem to fuel shifting. However, the tendency to move towards the ‘bi-language of religion’ threatens even the efforts of Basel churches. The study indicates interesting possibilities regarding religious impact but also shows, paradoxically, that the priority of Hakka-based religious institutions is to promote their religions, not to sustain the threatened heritage language. (Language maintenance, language shift, religious impact, Hakka Chinese community)*

Research shows that racism and xenophobia soared during the Covid-19 pandemic and this was certainly the case with the Roma in Romania. In this article, using critical discourse analysis, we analyse comments left below a television news clip posted on YouTube early in the crisis. This gives us valuable access to the way racism and xenophobia are linguistically expressed in social media, particularly in this Romanian context. It yields insights into how more overt forms of racism can sit alongside others which are less so, all united by a sense of shared embittered victimhood on behalf of Romanian citizens. We show how this takes place as the affordances of social media allow for a collective expression of frustration and mobilisation, reflecting on how social media may increase exposure to more extreme forms of racism. (Critical discourse analysis, Covid-19, online racism, Roma, social media, white victimhood)

Schiffrin 1984 has claimed that there is a speech activity called “sociable argument,” characterized by the presence of discursive features such as vulnerability of argumentative frames and cooperative strategies. Although a form of talk aptly labeled “sociable argument” undoubtedly exists, Schiffrin's analysis is problematic; the features she identifies as characteristic of this discursive category also show up in argument that is serious and non-sociable. This raises general questions about the nature of the criteria applicable to the definition of forms of talk. (Discourse analysis, argument, conflict, conversation, cooperation, rhetoric)

The introduction of Portuguese relationship terms into a system used by the Carib-speaking Kalapalo is explained in terms of internal social developments rather than language contact or acculturation. Upper Xingu Society is described as a linguistically diverse communications network that operates within two types of situations: ‘personal’ situations which emphasize verbal codes and focus on individual relationships and roles, and ‘non-personal’ situations which emphasize non-verbal ritualized performance in an intervillage context, focusing on local group identity rather than the qualities of individual ‘persons’. The adoption of Portuguese terms represents an elaboration of the system by which certain kinds of male relatives are designated as ‘persons’, and in the context of interaction between men speaking mutually unintelligible languages has circumvented the problem of language loyalty for intervillage communication. (Lexical borrowing, language loyalty, relationship terms, South American languages.)