This study suggests how easily distorted communication can arise in formal administrative discourse when the interests of those with some stake in the matter under discussion are not represented among the participants. After discussing the nature of power and its exercise in administrative settings, the article presents three episodes of discourse analysis. Members of a Board of Trustees were highly successful in debating and reaching suitable conclusions when the agenda items concerned their own close interests; they were able to create a discursive context that was relatively free of distorting ideologies, and which allowed participants to judge the sincerity, truth, justifiability, and meaningfulness of what was said. However, when the meeting agenda broached the affairs of an out-group with no known patronage on the Board, distortions in communication and small injustices became common; the out-group's interests were compromised. The article generalizes from the use of discursive power in this instance to the treatment of other culturally different minorities whose views and interests are not well represented among administrators and policy makers. It recommends how discursive power could be exercised more fairly in social institutions, and in public administration generally. (Discourse, power, minority groups, ideology, educational administration)

In the contemporary speech community of Fort Chipewyan, Alberta, there is evidence that the four languages, Chipewyan, Cree, French, and English, have converged to a considerable extent. Although at first this convergence appears to have developed since Fang-Kuei Li's 1928 work on Chipewyan in the same community, an examination of other sources which have been considered unreliable shows this convergence to have been stable for as long as 100 years. The view of Chipewyan as a discrete, historical variety, unaffected by convergence, is then shown to have been a joint product of the interaction between the linguist, Li, and his informant, François Mandeville. (Linguistic convergence, linguistic change, fieldwork, ethnography of speaking, history of linguistics; Chipewyan (Athapaskan) of Fort Chipewyan, Alberta, Canada.)

Mijikenda social relationships are of two types, “respectful” and “joking.” In this northeastern Bantu language of Kenya, respect based on kinship requires an overt linguistic marker: adjacent generations (parents and children) “respect” one another and address each other using plural forms. Kin of the same generation (siblings, cousins) and of alternate generations (grandparents, grandchildren) “joke” with one another and address each other in the singular. Accordingly, address form in Mijikenda signals and reaffirms generational identity and relative position in a well-defined social structure. It is also normatively associated with “correct” behavior. As pronouns of respect occur in such small-scale, nonstratified Bantu societies (and throughout the world), it is suggested that Brown and Gilman's (1960) particular hypothesis for the origin and spread of T/V respect systems needs to be replaced by a more socially persuasive and general explanation for a widespread phenomenon. (Sociolinguistics, pronouns of address, T/V systems, kinship, Kenya languages, Bantu)

Aspects of the precontact ontology of the Yurok Indians of northwestern California may be explored through analysis of lexical and semantic shifts that occur between two speech registers in Yurok: “ordinary” speech and an auxiliary. “high,” or esoteric, speech style. In the “high” register, use of which was the prerogative of a social and spiritual elite, a variety of mechanisms are implemented in altering “ordinary” lexation and in attributing different meanings to parts of the “ordinary” lexicon. These include circumlocution, antonymy, attribution, and, most significantly, the shifting of referential focus. Semantic shifts are systematic within specifiable lexical sets and implicitly comprise subtle ontological exegeses. (Ritual languages, speech registers, translation, world view, Native North America)

This article investigates a specific practice that recipients in Dutch talk-in-interaction use when responding to turns that have as one of their main jobs to inform. By responding to an informing turn with an oh-prefaced nonrepeating response that has yes/no-type interrogative word order, recipients treat that turn as counter to expectation and request both confirmation of the inference formulated in his/her response, as well as reconciliatory information for the two discrepant states of affairs. This practice is compared to similar cases where the nonrepeating response is not oh-prefaced to show that such turns implement different actions. Data are in Dutch with English translations. (Counterexpectations, change-of-state, yes/no-type interrogatives, action formation, practions)*

Previous research has proposed that phonetic variation may index affect prior to indexing other social meanings. This study explores whether the affective indexicality of vowels identified in previous studies can also be observed among deaf or hard-of-hearing speakers, in this case, speakers of Taiwan Mandarin. The results suggest that /i/ backing is invoked to signal negative affect. This study also demonstrates how assistive devices like hearing aids and cochlear implants can be considered semiotic resources. For deaf or hard-of-hearing speakers, assistive hearing devices enter into a process of bricolage with linguistic and other symbolic resources, generating new potentials for the embodiment of affect. (Affect, iconicity, Taiwan Mandarin, embodied sociolinguistics, deafness)*

Modern bureaucratic institutions are notorious for producing documents that are difficult to understand. Much attention has been paid to the language of these materials; little is known about the contexts in which these documents are used and their potential effects on functional literacy. Drawing on research in a midwestern credit union, this paper discusses several factors that seem to characterize how and why credit unions and their members use credit union documents: the characteristics of document availability, the structure of interactions in which documents are used, attitudes and beliefs about the documents, and the functions of documents. (Literate practices, conversational analysis, bureaucratic institutions, politics of language, plain language movement).

An experimental study of the role of tone of voice in Japanese conversations, using both Japanese and American subjects, has uncovered situational determinants of voice quality not related to emotion. Some of these variations are perceived differently by the two sets of subjects, some in the same way. The nature of the situational determinants casts new doubt on the plausibility of ‘language’ as a natural subset of human communications. (Tone of voice, non-linguistic communication, ethnography of communication, Japan.)

Secularization has played a significant role in the revival of Hebrew. Use of words and phrases from the religious domain in secular contexts, so natural to the native Israeli, may at times shock students who have studied Hebrew outside Israel, especially those trained in Jewish day schools. The growing secularization of Israeli life-style and the increasing influence of foreign languages, as manifested in the local media, indeed have given rise to new forms of language secularization. These have split modern Hebrew into two varieties: on the one hand, a language clinging to its historical roots, spoken and understood by observant Jews in Israel and studied abroad in religious day schools, and on the other hand, a secularized variety, separated from its ancient culture, adopted by many circles of Israeli Hebrew speakers. (Semantic change, language varieties, Hebrew)

Theories of social capital hold that strong interpersonal relationships can be leveraged to facilitate information sharing, gain trust, and strengthen group solidarity. Thus, it is often predicted that international workers are disadvantaged in these areas because they lack established social ties. Using data from disagreements between American interns and their colleagues in Japanese companies, this study critically examines this prediction by illustrating some ways participants use socially constructed representations of intercultural ideologies in ways that facilitate similar outcomes and substitute for their lack of relational histories. Specifically, these representations temporarily reverse flows of information, resist restrictions stemming from perceived lack of trust, and create shared humor that helps redefine in-group boundaries. By using a formal social capital model to interpret these results, this study helps position socially constructed representations of interculturality within a broader theoretical account of the potentially many forms of symbolic ‘capital’ that enable action. (Social capital, interculturality, disagreements, workplace, social identity)*

Gene Lerner (ed.), Conversation analysis: Studies from the first generation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2004. Pp. 300. Hb $138.00, Pb $65.95.

Conversation analysis developed in the mid to late 1960s in a collaboration initially between Harvey Sacks and Emanuel Schegloff and, somewhat later, with the addition of Gail Jefferson. By the early 1970s, several students joined the group, by this point based at the University of California campuses at Irvine and Los Angeles, to form what Lerner calls “the first generation.” Conversation analysis has continued to grow, indeed has flourished, in the years since. Today conversation analysts are to be found not only in the United Stated, Canada, and the United Kingdom, but also Japan, Korea, Germany, Finland, the Netherlands, and many other countries. There are conversation analysts in departments of sociology, linguistics, anthropology, communication, and psychology, as well as in many modern language and applied programs. The widespread success of conversation analysis is largely attributable to three characteristics of its research program:

Contrary to statements made by previous researchers, Muskogee women are linguistically active in ceremonial public spheres, though through the use of genres that differ significantly from men's. One of the genres performed in these contexts is “gossip,” which is described by some Muskogee men as a dangerous genre. This article explores why Muskogee women's and men's linguistic practices differ so strikingly in the ceremonial sphere, and what women achieve through their use of gossip. It is suggested that consideration of Muskogee language and gender ideologies in regard to these issues shows that gendered language use differences are rational and maintain balance between the genders. Insights from both ideologies also indicate that women's gossip is a powerful genre, the use of which is generally positive for Muskogee society.I would like to thank Linda Alexander, Bertha Tilkens, John Proctor, and other members of the Muskogee community who have allowed me to attend and be part of their interactions. I also would like to express my appreciation to the reviewers of this manuscript for their insightful comments.

This article discusses internet memes in their capacity to prompt affective responses on social media in the aftermath of the migrant crisis. The focus is on Facebook pages devoted to geopolitical satire meme-comics known as countryballs and their uptake with regard to the proposed migrant relocation mechanisms. Engagement with internet memes reveals a multilayered complexity behind what is often simplistically portrayed as pro- or anti-migrant sentiment. In order to account for this complexity, the paper combines Gilbert Simondon's theory of individuation with Mikhail Bakhtin's notion of the chronotope currently developed in interactional sociolinguistics along the lines of symbolic interactionism. Finally, this article shows that memes are not a mere product of participatory culture, but rather a powerful instigator of technosocial and often heteroglossic practices that co-organize social life in the new polycentric collectivities appearing on social media. (Chronotope, individuation, internet memes, countryballs, Facebook, identity)*

It is an astonishing fact that the dynamo producing some of the most powerful scholarship on the history of the English language is not even in Indo-European territory. Under the inspired leadership of Professor Matti Rissanen, Helsinki has reached an unprecedented level of effort in this field, and, when Rissanen retired in 2001, Terttu Nevalainen became his successor as director of the Research Unit for Variation and Change in English. This volume celebrates her elevation to her new role and, at the same time, her fiftieth birthday.

A brief editors'note about the title of this book begins with the following statement: “The title of this volume is an answer to another publication, the UNESCO Red Book on endangered languages.” It ends by making a vow: “We hope this Green Book will be of use to everyone who wants it to be no longer necessary for their language to be listed in the Red Book.

This article calls attention to the saliency of secondary education within the community and its utility in constructing social categories, in order to consider how it affects linguistic variation. Older St. Louisans draw on secondary education to construct a divide between those who attended Catholic high schools and those who attended public schools. I show that speakers in a sample of older St. Louisans differ in production of the thought vowel based on education type. This effect is weakened in apparent time when we consider a larger sample that includes both older and younger speakers. I draw on Brubaker's (2004) view of groups as events and actions to argue that these categories were indexed only while they had a high degree of groupness, and suggest that social changes that led to diminished groupness between Catholics and Publics also resulted in the loss of a linguistic distinction between the groups. (Education, groups, Northern Cities Shift, Catholicism)*