In responses to English questions, prefacing with the particle oh indicates that, from the viewpoint of the answerer, a question is problematic in terms of its relevance, presuppositions, or context. In addition, oh-prefacing is used to foreshadow reluctance to advance the conversational topic invoked by a question; it may also be part of a “trouble-premonitory” response to various types of How are you inquiries in conversational openings and elsewhere. (Conversation analysis, English, utterance design, particles.)

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)

Honorific registers are formally discrete but functionally stratified systems, in the sense that an apparently bounded set of linguistic forms allows language users to calculate many concurrent aspects of the pragmatic context of language use. This paper argues that native stereotypes about language structure and use play a critical role in formulating the pragmatic value(s) of register systems. The linguist can neither isolate the forms belonging to a register, nor explain their significance in use, independently of appeal to native stereotypes about language. The paper discusses methods for the empirical study and analysis of such stereotypes. Stereotypes that formulate the social identity of language users play a special role within register systems, grounding the significance of pragmatic acts in the attributes of pragmatic actors. Much of the discussion focuses on how such stereotypes are formulated and what their social consequences are. (Honorifics, pragmatics, meta-pragmatics, stereotypes, registers, deference, identity, Tibetan)

Indigenous languages are under siege, not only in the US but around the world – in danger of disappearing because they are not being transmitted to the next generation. Immigrants and their languages worldwide are similarly subjected to seemingly irresistible social, political, and economic pressures. This article discusses a number of such cases, including Shawandawa from the Brazilian Amazon, Quechua in the South American Andes, the East Indian communities of South Africa, Khmer in Philadelphia, Welsh, Maori, Turkish in the UK, and Native Californian languages. At a time when phrases like “endangered languages” and “linguicism” are invoked to describe the plight of the world's vanishing linguistic resources in their encounter with the phenomenal growth of world languages such as English, the cases reviewed here provide consistent and compelling evidence that language policy and language education serve as vehicles for promoting the vitality, versatility, and stability of these languages, and ultimately promote the rights of their speakers to participate in the global community on and IN their own terms. (Endangered languages, immigrant languages, indigenous languages, language revitalization, linguicism)

Supported by contemporary evidence, this study discusses the revival of Hebrew a century ago (within two or three decades), with a focus on the actual total shift of pre-Israel Palestine's Jewish community from Yiddish and several other languages to Hebrew as an all-purpose means of communication. First, four “factors” that prevailed prior to and during the revival are discussed: the “communicative”, “political”, “religious”, and “literary.” The study then proposes schematically that the shift to Hebrew evolved in a cycle consisting of four consecutive albeit partially overlapping “steps”: (1) The children are instilled with desired language attitudes. (2) The children acquire the code, Hebrew. (3) The children transfer Hebrew, now a second language, out of the schools. (4) With these children now adults, their newly born receive Hebrew as a first language. Finally, the study suggests that, in the absence of a central authority, the revival can be seen as a case of “micro language planning,” in which potential speakers constituted “language planning agents” active in “language planning cells.” (Language revival, Hebrew, language planning, language shift, vernacular)

Recent work suggests the importance of integrating prosodic research with research on the sequential organization of ordinary conversation. This paper examines how interactants use prosody as a resource in the joint accomplishment of delivered news as good or bad. Analysis of approximately 100 naturally occurring conversational news deliveries reveals that both good and bad news are presented and received with characteristic prosodic features that are consistent with expression of joy and sorrow, respectively, as described in the existing literature on prosody. These prosodic features are systematically deployed in each of the four turns of the prototypical news delivery sequence. Proposals and ratifications of the valence of a delivery are often made prosodically in the initial turns of the prototypical four-turn news delivery, while lexical assessments of news are often made later. When prosody is used to propose the valence of an item of news, subsequent lexical assessments tend to be alignments with these earlier ascriptions of valence, rather than independent appraisals of the news. (Bad news, good news, conversation analysis, prosody, sequencing).

This article analyzes the use of metapragmatic description in the ethnoclassification of language by native speakers on the Franco-Antillean island of Saint Barthélemy. A prevalent technique for metapragmatic description is facilitated by the differential formation of honorific registers in the island's indigenous languages, so that speakers essentialize honorific pronouns as tropes of whole languages and classify the languages in such terms. This process reflects the varied geolinguistic and generational attributes of these speakers, whose register or social-dialectal calculations are all based ultimately on folk ideologies of honorification. (Classification, language ideology, French Creole, metapragmatics, Caribbean sociolinguistics)

This article proposes a comprehensive model of the SPEECH COMMUNITY in sociolinguistics that reworks Labov's model, which has been criticized as being restrictive. Fieldork in non-metropolitan Mexico demonstrates the utility of our model, which can be applied across both urban and non-urban domains. It is compatible with the Milroys' central mechanism for the description of individual speech usage and group cohesion or susceptibility to change in terms of the social network. Based on linguistic variable types, this model has a hierarchy of four nested fields (speech community configurations) into which each individual is placed, according to his/her demonstrated recognition of the social evaluation associated with the variables. At the most local configuration, speakers demonstrate no knowledge of generally stigmatized variables; in the second, speakers register an awareness of stigmatized variables; in the third, an awareness of stigmatized and regional variables; and in the fourth, speakers model standard variants over regional ones. This model classifies the kinds of sociolinguistic variables that are pertinent in this social setting and also provides a structured manner for dealing with dialect contact dynamics. (Speech community, social network, Spanish, Mexico, dialect, diffusion, variables.)

In conversation, speakers occasionally use figurative expressions such as “had a good innings,” “take with a pinch of salt,” or “come to the end of her tether.” This article investigates WHERE in conversation such expressions are used, in terms of their sequential distribution. One clear distributional pattern is found: Figurative expressions occur regularly in topic transition sequences, and specifically in the turn where a topic is summarized, thereby initiating the closing of a topic. The paper discusses some of the distinctive features of the topic termination/transition sequences with which figurative closings are associated, particularly participants' orientation to their moving to new topics. Finally, the interactional use of figurative expressions is considered in the context of instances where their use fails to secure topical closure, manifesting some conflict (disaffiliation, etc.) between the participants. (Figurative expressions, idioms, conversation, topic)

The Tamil language has had its current standard written form since the 13th century; but because of increasing diglossia, spoken Tamil dialects have now diverged so radically from earlier norms, including the written standard (LT, or Literary Tamil) that no spoken dialect, regional or social, can function as the koiné or lingua franca. Because LT is never used for authentic informal oral communication between live speakers, there has always been a need for some sort of spoken “standard” koiné for inter-dialect communication. Aside from interpersonal communication, one hears this inter-dialect koiné most clearly in the so-called “social”film, which arose out of its antecedent, the popular or “social” drama. Conversational portions of novels and short stories also exhibit spoken forms, though not always as clearly “phonetic” as a phonetician might expect. The goal of this paper is to examine the concept of “language standardization” as it has been applied to other languages, focusing on the role of literacy and writing in this process; then to present evidence for, as well as the sources of, koinæization of "Standard Spoken Tamil"; and then to determine whether SST is in fact an emergent standard, given the challenges of literacy and writing. (Standardization, Tamil, diglossia, linguae francae, koinés)

Mealtimes reveal culturally specific ways of talking, and constitute opportunities for socialization of children into those ways. In 22 Norwegian families and 22 American families, matched for age and gender of preschoolaged child and for participant constellation, mealtimes were examined for the occurrence and type of narrative and explanatory talk. All indices suggested that the Norwegian families produced more narrative talk – in particular, talk about minor deviations from social scripts – whereas the American families produced more explanatory talk, particularly talk focused on explanations for physical events or for individual behaviors. When Norwegian families gave explanations, they were likely to be focused on social norms and deviations from them, like their narratives. The results are interpreted in relation to the Norwegian cultural values of mitigated collectivism, egalitarianism, homogeneity, and implicit social rules, in contrast to American values of individualism, diversity, and explicit formulation and transmission of civic values. (Socialization, culture, narrative, explanation, family, mealtimes, Norway, USA.)

This article examines PERFORMANCE SPEECH in the historically isolated island community of Ocracoke, North Carolina. Over the past several decades islanders have come into increasingly frequent contact with tourists and new residents, who often comment on the island's “quaint” relic dialect. In response, some Ocracokers have developed performance phrases that highlight island features, particularly the pronunciation of/ay/ with a raised/backed nucleus, i.e. [Λ-1]. The analysis of/ay/ in the performance and non-performance speech of a representative Ocracoke speaker yields several important insights for the study of language in its social context. First, performance speech may display more regular patterning than has traditionally been assumed. Second, it lends insight into speaker perception of language features. Finally, the incorporation of performance speech into the variationist-based study of style-shifting offers support for the growing belief that style-shifting may be primarily proactive rather than reactive. (Keywords: Ocracoke, performance speech, style-shifting, stylistic variation, register, self-conscious speech.)

Focus group discussions are now widely used for gathering data, in social science as well as in commercial marketing and public opinion research. One appeal of focus groups is that in some ways they seem like everyday talk, but their effectiveness depends on a tension between the moderator's constraints and participants' interaction. The moderator introduces and defines topics, but participants can shift, close, and interpret them. The moderator elicits disagreement in a way specific to focus groups, but participants manage their disagreement. Thus we see not simple control by the moderator, but a complex collaborative project operating under the shared assumption that the purpose of the discussion is to display opinions to the moderator. These findings extend the analysis of conversation in institutional settings and contribute to a methodological critique of the reification of attitudes and opinions in some social science research. (Focus group techniques, conversation, discourse analysis, interaction, agreement, topic, laughter, environment.)