How is ethnicity indexed linguistically in a speech community in which immigrant L2s have typically not been spoken for three or more generations? Drawing on recordings and ethnographic observations of eighteen white high school girls in south Philadelphia, speakers of Irish descent are shown to differentiate themselves from speakers of Italian descent through their use of (ay0), that is, Canadian Raising. (ay0) is an ongoing sound change in Philadelphia and is remarkable for being a rare example of a male-led change. Irish girls exploit more male-like, backed, and raised variants as a resource for indexing their ethnic identity, which is associated locally with stereotypically masculine characteristics such as toughness. The symbolic reflection of ethnic affiliation through this subtle linguistic device makes use of both local and supralocal social meanings. (Ethnicity, adolescence, Philadelphia, Irish, Canadian Raising, gender, sound change, language, and identity)*

Stories of personal experience have been a staple of research on narrative, while stories of vicarious experience have remained largely ignored, though they offer special insights into issues of epistemic authority, telling rights, and evaluation. This article seeks to show that stories of vicarious experience can fulfill the same functions as stories of personal experience in conversation, illustrating a point in an argument, sharing news, and for their entertainment value. Discrepancies between stories of vicarious experience and stories of personal experience follow from the distinction between third person and first person narrative along with corresponding differences in their participation frameworks in the sense of Goffman (1981): conversationalists cannot deploy third person stories of vicarious experience in functions such as mutual self-disclosure or to display resistance to troubles; conversely, stories of vicarious experience offer greater opportunities for co-narration. (Epistemic authority, evaluation, identity, narrative, participation frameworks, telling rights, vicarious experience)

Existential constructions in a corpus of spontaneous English from Bequia (St. Vincent and the Grenadines) are used to explore a linguistic problem (Is variation in verb form in existential constructions best viewed as grammatical or lexical?) and a sociolinguistic problem (What aspects of variation change over a lifetime?). We compare “urban sojourners” (Bequians who have been away) with their home village norms. We observe differences in the frequency of the type of existential preferred in different villages and by the urban sojourners. We also observe differences in whether or not the main verb agrees in number with a postposed plural subject. Building on William Labov's early discussions of constraints on variation imposed by the “sociolinguistic monitor,” we suggest that variation in individual speakers supports the notion that variables that are fundamentally grammatical are less likely to mark social factors than lexical variables are. (Bequia, Caribbean English, existentials, subject-verb agreement)*

This study examines the role of social class and gender in an ongoing change in Spanish spoken in New York City (NYC). The change, which has to do with increasing use of Spanish subject pronouns, is correlated with increased exposure to life in NYC and to English. Our investigation of six different national-origin groups shows a connection between affluence and change: the most affluent Latino groups undergo the most increase in pronoun use, while the least affluent undergo no change. This pattern is explained as further indication that resistance to linguistic change is more pronounced in poorer communities as a result of denser social networks. In addition we find a women effect: immigrant women lead men in the increasing use of pronouns. We argue that the women effect in bilingual settings warrants a reevaluation of existing explanations of women as leaders of linguistic change. (Language change, social class, gender, bilingualism, Spanish in the US, pronouns)*