Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Journals
  3. Language in Society
  4. Volume 4 Issue 1
Journal Home
Refine listing

Refine listing

Access:
Publication date:

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×
< Back to all issues

Volume 4 - Issue 1 - April 1975

Contents

Page 1 of 2

Articles: Conversational devices and structures

  • Big and thin; two Diola-Fogny meta-linguistic terms1

  • J. David Sapir
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    18 December 2008, pp. 1-15

  • The Diola-Fogny of Sénégal, West Africa, socially intuit with the meta-linguistic terms ‘big’ and ‘thin’ the tense/lax vowel contrast that is basic to their phonology. The two terms are primarily used to identify speech variation among individuals and groups. Examination revealed that speakers who made relatively greater use of vowel harmony were characterized as ‘big’ in contrast to others who were thought of as ‘thin’ speakers. The ‘big’/‘thin’ distinction provides the Fogny with one means by which they place the speech of an individual. In addition, this meta-linguistic device either is used to express indirectly the social place of an alter vis-à-vis an ego in terms of simple sameness or difference, or, when more than two people are involved, in terms of some form of segmentary opposition. (Sénégal, meta-linguistics, social interaction, phonology.)

  • Some aspects of social grammar features of one type of question in English and Yoruba

  • M. C. Grayshon
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    18 December 2008, pp. 17-29
  • ABSTRACT

    As a more detailed example leading towards a social grammar of language three emotions are analysed first in English and then in the tonal language Yoruba. It is shown that the communication features in English which lie in intonation and stress related to grammatical position of words in English, require a change of grammar in Yoruba and that these changes are subject to further categorization by utilizing status and solidarity. As a by-product it is shown that the group of paralinguistic phenomena in English are intimately related to the communication of social status and emotion and that there is a possibility of classification by social grammar. (Expressive language, para-linguistics, social grammar, English, Yoruba.)

  • Studies in dialogue and discourse; an exponential law of successive questioning1

  • Elliot G. Mishler
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    18 December 2008, pp. 31-51

  • The structure of natural conversations in first-grade classrooms is the focus of this inquiry. Analyses of a particular type of discourse, namely, connected conversations initiated and sustained by questioning, suggest that the probability that a conversation will be continued may be expressed as a simple exponential function. The formula, pi = ari−1, generates a curve of theoretically-expected rates of successive questions in a series that closely matches observed rates. The formula is based on the application of a constant ratio, that is, the ratio of rates within each pair of adjacent questions is the same throughout the series: p2:p1=p3:p2 = p4:p3. … Thus, it appears that the probability of a ‘next’ question following an exchange that contains a previous question remains constant through the length of the discourse series. In other words, the probability of a question is independent of the temporal location of an utterance in this type of connected conversation. The analyses suggest further that the model of a finite Markov chain, that is, of a particular type of stochastic process, may be applicable to certain features of a discourse. (Conversational analysis, sequencing in exchanges, U.S. English in first-grade classrooms.)

  • Transferable communicative routines: strategies and group identity in two speech events

  • Karen Ann Watson
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    18 December 2008, pp. 53-72
  • ABSTRACT

    Two speech events, narration and joking conversation, are analyzed from a sample of speech data recorded from Hawaiian children 5–7 years old, in a peer group setting. An underlying routine, which is transferable from one genre of speech event to another, is identified in both narration and joking. This routine is iterative, and allows for both stories and joking to be produced jointly in a contrapuntal style. Some social rules governing the use of the routine are discussed. (Linguistic routines, narration, joking, conversation, Hawaiian talk story.)

Book Review

Shorter Notices

Page 1 of 2