The quantification of communication network integration can provide information valuable to the study of language change in very small rural communities. The adaptation of urban and communication network methodology for rural alpine social structures establishes a framework for the study of variation leading to change based on individual usage for the dialect of Grossdorf in Vorarlberg, Austria's western-most province. This approach is particularly relevant when study of aggregate group behavior has failed to yield results due to small sample size or group internal inconsistency. (Field methods, language networks, variation and change)

As doctors and patients communicate during medical interactions they both offer accounts and respond to them. By treating these accounts as interactional strategies which link social structure to social interaction we display how the medical interview is characterized by a moment-to-moment battle that mirrors and largely sustains the institutional authority and status of doctors and the reality of genders. (Medicine, communication, accounting practices, interactional strategies, institutional authority, professional status, gender)

This study traces the evolution of scientific research writing in English from 1675 to 1975. Two separate methods of discourse analysis – rhetorical analysis focusing on broad genre characteristics, and sociolinguistic register analysis – are applied to a large corpus of articles from the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. The two sets of results are then interpreted vis-à-vis the Royal Society's social history to yield an integrated description. Findings indicate that: (a) research writing in the 17th – 18th centuries was substantially influenced by communicative norms of author-centered genteel conduct; (b) greater attention to methodology and precision in the interest of scientific specialization brought about pronounced textual changes in the 19th century, although gentlemanly norms were still in evidence; and (c) by the late 20th century, expanded theoretical description/discussions appear to have replaced experiments and methods as the rhetorical centerpiece of the research article. (Discourse analysis, rhetorical analysis, register, social studies of science, scientific writing, corpus linguistics)

From 1945 until 1987, the KMT (Nationalist) government enforced its strict Mandarin Language Policy in schools throughout Taiwan, and students were forbidden to speak local languages or dialects. Recent reversal of this policy allows schools to teach these formerly forbidden varieties. Despite some attention from scholars, it remains to explore the impact of these policies on successive generations of bilingual speakers. This study explores the perceptions of parents, grandparents, and young adults. The data show that school-based policies have an impact on family-based speaking practices. They also demonstrate the complex interplay between public and private histories in the development of linguistic ideologies and language as capital.

Recent efforts to analyze the structure of talk have focused primarily on the conversation of persons from a white middle-class background. This paper compares the way in which talk is regulated, both verbally and non-verbally, in Anglo interaction with the regulation of talk among Indians of the Warm Springs Reservation, in central Oregon. The purpose of this comparison is to begin to assess the sources and nature of cultural variability in this one aspect of language use. (Ethnography of communication, conversational analysis, nonverbal communication, North American Indians.)

William Labov formulated rules for sounding (black verbal dueling) that saw ritual insults, but not personal insults, as properly falling within the framework of black verbal play. Other researchers interested in contrasting play and fact-oriented dispute genres within more general discussions of keying have used Labov's analysis as a basis for drawing conclusions as to where play ends and the serious begins within this activity. However, Labov's decision to place personal insults outside the framework of the game of sounding is incorrect. Consequently, so too is the boundary line established by these other researchers to distinguish play from nonplay within the context of black verbal dueling. The present paper proposes to establish the correct black cultural perspective on the role and function of personal insults in sounding and the boundary between play and nonplay within the context of that activity. It also considers the different cultural consequences that would stem from regarding personal insults to be part of verbal play or not. Finally, it shows similarities in the structure and function of two speech actions – accusations and denials – that are used in both play and nonplay disputes to demonstrate more closely the nature of reciprocal influence of play and nonplay interactions. (Black verbal dueling, keying, discourse analysis, play and nonplay dispute genres, interethnic communication)

Children in many African societies have meaningful names – unlike their Western counterparts, whose names are primarily labels. In Zulu, Xhosa, Sotho, Tswana, and many other cultures, namegivers traditionally chose personal names that pointed to a range of people and circumstances that were relevant at the time of the child's birth. These highly individual or unique names were part of particular social frameworks that have long been evolving with Western acculturation. Like the social frameworks within which they are embedded, naming practices are in the process of change.

This article investigates change in Zulu naming practices as a reflection of wider social changes. Taking historical accounts as the source of traditional namegiving, an analysis of rural, farm, and urban names shows quantitative and qualitative differences in naming practices. Contemporary names differ significantly from traditional ones, and provide evidence that the world view within which names are given is in the process of redefinition. (Anthropological linguistics, naming, South Africa, Zulu)

This article explores how members of small work groups use audible and visible actions to coordinate conversational interaction. The analysis of this activity context includes some methods for re-engaging turn-by-turn talk after it has lapsed, as well as some methods for making relevant a lapse in talk, and dis-engaging it, once it has been engaged. In addition, the actions positioned at conversational boundaries, both pre-re-engaging and post-dis-engaging, show the members' orientation to phases of lapse and phases of turn-by-turn talk. This study is part of a larger dissertation project (Szymanski 1996). I thank Rebecca Simon and her third-graders for welcoming me into their classroom. I also gratefully acknowledge Gene Lerner, John Gumperz, Leslie Jarmon, and Jürgen Streeck for their valuable comments on earlier drafts of this article.

Many studies (Heath 1984b, 1986; Robinson 1998; Robinson & Stivers 2001; Greatbach 2006; Frers 2009) have shown that, while interacting with their patients, doctors fulfill several tasks (speaking, reading, writing prescriptions, reporting data on the computer, etc.) through an interplay of diverse multimodal resources (speech, gesture, body posture, gaze, object manipulation, etc.). In comparison, multimodality in interpreter-mediated medical encounters has received scant attention. This contribution examines a corpus of interactions involving Italian doctors, Chinese patients, and an interpreter. Having to manage multiparty and multitask conversations with patients with whom no direct communication is possible, doctors are forced to rely heavily on multimodality. The analysis here shows how the simultaneous actions performed by the doctors are coordinated through the use of multiple modalities. The outcomes on the global organization of interpreter-mediated interaction are also discussed. (Conversation analysis, doctor-patient interaction, interpreting, multitasking, multimodality)*

The Ilongots of the northern Philippines traditionally value a speech style, ‘crooked language,’ rich in art, wit, and indirection, in certain situations. Purun ‘oratory’, both as event and speech style, is one of these. A brideprice meeting is recounted and examined in detail. Unique features of oratory, in contrast to everyday verbal interaction, depend on its public character, as a scheduled event with large audience (rather than special setting, personnel or ritual), and as having the purpose of achieving explicit, formal understanding and agreement. The special features of oratory include body-motion; category labels for self-reference; degree of use of deferential, self-deprecating, and qualifying phrases and terms; degree of use of metalinguistic terms generally; and rhythms. Degree of use of these features may vary in the course of the event. Acculturation has brought about conflict with the preference of newly educated and missionized Ilongots for ‘straight speech’. In effect, the indirect ‘crooked’ speech style is linked with indigenous egalitarian norms, while the public use of ‘straight speech’ is linked with externally imposed authoritarian relationships. (Speech styles and social structure; public performance everyday interaction; discourse devices; metalinguistic concepts and devices; conflict of speech norms; social change; Northern Luzon, Philippines: Malayo-Polynesian.)

This article considers the theoretical and practical relationship between core linguistics and sociolinguistics in relation to the emergence of Principles and Parameters Theory. Parameters were introduced into core Chomskyan linguistics in an effort to account for variation between languages. However, as we argue – and as has long been known in sociolinguistics – languages (French, Italian etc.) are social rather than abstract products. In this sense, core linguistics may need to pay more attention than it has in the past to aspects of actual variation in order to understand the limits and range of parameters. Thus we argue that dialects of languages in themselves have parameters, and as such may be defined within parametric limits. Here we believe there is something of interest to sociolinguists, in terms both of structural definitions and of overall historical development. In general, then, while variation has always been central to sociolinguistics, it is now central, in one sense, to core linguistics; and here we have the opportunity to explore ways in which sociolinguistics and core linguistics may relate to each other in their interest in variation. (Parameters; variation; dialect; Belfast; Ireland)

This study examines children's acquisition of three politeness routines: hi, thanks, and goodbye. Twenty-two children, eleven boys and eleven girls, and their parents participated. At the end of a parent-child play session, an assistant entered the playroom with a gift to elicit routines from the children. Spontaneous production of the three routines was low, with thank you the most infrequent. Parents actively prompted their children to produce routines, however, and children usually complied. Further, parents themselves used the routines, with more mothers than fathers saying thank you and goodbye to the assistant. Results were discussed in relation to the role of parents in linguistic socialization and to the importance of routines in social interaction. (Routines; politeness formulas; linguistic socialization; parental teaching; mother-father differences; sex role socialization)

This article examines use of kinship terms, pronouns, and proper names in China, in an overall framework termed “naming” that demonstrates the performative power of uttering relational terms, especially by the junior in the relationship. It also describes the prototypical routine of introductions, which consist of three participants, in contrast to the more typical conversation in Western analysis which posits two participants. In this three-party exchange, the animator is not the author of the words, but rather the willing and necessary namer of the relationship. Finally, it situates this performative function of naming within a general discussion of language ideology in Chinese society, in which signifiers and their homophones are seen as somehow inseparable from the signifieds. (Naming, speech act theory, ideology, kinship, China)

One who has lived soon an entire century must learn to change all her habits, and habits of address surely are not the easiest. What comes simply and naturally in one place is wrong and ill-mannered in another (Former servant-girl, informant KU 2849).

Even an ordinary simple worker has today became aware of the fact that he also is a human being, and that the great machinery would not function if he did not play his part. An old conservative postmaster's wife said once to my mother, who was the simple wife of a worker: ‘I think things now are not the way they should be; the workers' conditions are so good that they dress so well that nowadays one cannot tell the difference between workers and fine folk.’ This utterance from a woman who believed she belonged to the fine folk my mother never forgot, and I myself have also remembered it (Retired railroad worker, informant KU 2768)

The search for explanatory coherence in language and gender research has fostered a variety of research methods and analyses; this article evaluates the contributions of the Communities of Practice approach, with its focus on the constructive practices of a group – especially mutual engagement of learning a jointly negotiated practice of gender. Rather than presupposing gender differences as a starting point, CofP emphasizes the learning and mutability in gendered linguistic displays across groups; CofP theory thus naturalizes intragroup variation, not marking it as deviant. However, while the CofP approach focuses much-needed attention on the social construction of gender as local and cross-culturally variable, gender research must be augmented by critical study of two other facets of gender: ideology and innateness, which are critical components of a more comprehensive theory of gender for language research. I would like to give thanks to Janet Holmes for organizing the original forum in which the paper developed, and for her very helpful comments; to Sally McConnell-Ginet and Penny Eckert for their sustained support, through their work, of me and others in the field; and to all three of them – plus Alice Freed, Miriam Meyerhoff, and Susan Ehrlich – for stimulating comments and discussion of these issues. Thanks also go to Mary Talbot and Craig Waddell for comments on an earlier draft. All errors remain my own responsibility.

The study of dialect distribution has generally focused on the performance of speakers rather than on their perception of speech variation. The exceptions in so-called attitude studies do not further our understanding of where ordinary speakers believe dialect boundaries exist. Hand-drawn maps from five areas (Hawaii, southeastern Michigan, southern Indiana, western New York, and New York City) are converted into generalized maps of local perceptions of dialect areas of the United States. The maps are compared with one another, with traditional maps of U.S.dialect areas, and with maps of cultural and regional zones of the United States. The maps are shown to be of value in calculating attitudinal factors and may be of considerable importance in determining the existence and scope of such notions as “speech community.” (Dialect geography, language standards, American speech, language attitudes)

Simultaneous speech is neither necessary nor sufficient for the recognition of “interruption” by interlocutors. A peaker's “completion right” is vitiated by how long she has been speaking, how often she has spoken, the number of “points” made in a speaking turn, and the special rights of some speakers to speak about some topics. There are no absolute syntactical or acoustical criteria for recognizing an occurrence of “interruption” available either to those involved in a speech event nor to analysts. (Turn taking, California English conversation)

The present investigation concerns language ideology and language practices in relation to a language shift – from Quichua-Spanish bilingualism to Spanish monolingualism – that seems to be under way. The analyses are based on fieldwork in an Ecuadorian sierra community characterized by ethnic revitalization. Among adult comuneros, the vernacular is seen as an essential part of their Indian cultural heritage. In the children's daily lives, the adults, particularly women and the elderly, speak Quichua among themselves, yet children are not addressed in the vernacular by either parents or elder siblings, and those under 10 years of age are generally more or less monolingual in Spanish. The paradoxical mismatch between ideology and daily practices – the ethnic revitalization paradox – is analyzed in light of Quichua speaking practices in intergenerational encounters, and in children's play dialogues. Ultimately, being Quichua means something different to members of each generation.

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)

This article argues that certain aspects of language use may be more resistant to change than is language code. In communities undergoing language shift, researchers have noted ways in which indigenous patterns of interaction may be retained after the language used has shifted to English. It is argued that aspects of a speech community's interaction that are most tacit are also the most resistant to change, and are maintained through mundane routines and forms of everyday interaction. Such contexts for language use typically are the focus in studies of language socialization, which bring the theoretical perspectives of both practice theory and Bakhtinian dialogicality to bear on the question of how interactional and linguistic routines are maintained and transmitted across generations. Analysis here focuses on one particular interactional routine: the giving of directives involving a triadic participation structure, between caregivers and children in a Navajo community.