This study investigates the employment in modern Hebrew of an element having a lexical source involving comparison (k(e)-, ‘like’) that has proliferated over the past decade or so in Israel; ke′ilu ‘like’, lit. ‘as if’. The data come from audio recordings of casual conversations of college-educated Israelis with their friends and relatives, totaling approximately 78 minutes of talk among 72 speakers, transcribed in full and segmented into intonation units. A qualitative analysis of talk-in-interaction reveals four nonliteral functions of this expression: hedging, self-rephrasal, focus-marking, and quotation. A quantitative perspective on the distribution of these functions is presented, and these qualitative and quantitative analyses lead to an examination of the functional itinerary of this word in Hebrew discourse. A comparison with two “equivalents” of ke′ilu, English like and French genre leads to a discussion of functional parallelism across languages and yields further support for Hopper's principle of “persistence” in grammaticization. (Hebrew talk-in-interaction, grammaticization, cross-language pragmatics, discourse particles, hedging, self-rephrasal, focus-marking, quotatives.)* In memory of Suzanne Fleischman

This article investigates public discourses of multilingualism in Britain. In contrast to previous research focusing on specific languages or varieties of language, we examine multilingualism as a metalinguistic construct and are interested in what is frequently said about multilingualism, and how it is said. More specifically, we explore the extent to which media discourses are consonant or diverge from the attitudes of lay people. Media discourses are investigated using a corpus-assisted discourse-study approach to the analysis of large-press corpora. Results from the corpus study are then incorporated in an attitude survey distributed to 200 participants living in a large superdiverse town in Britain. Our study shows that while positive media discourses are mostly shared by the general public, some of the negative themes, especially those relating to immigration, are either reinforced or challenged. The article demonstrates the usefulness of triangulating corpus-linguistic methods with a survey to provide a more comprehensive understanding of public discourses about language matters, and offers some implications for promoting multilingualism in society. (Multilingualism, metalanguage, corpus-assisted discourse study (CADS), attitude survey, triangulation)

Exploring contemporary Aymara and Quechua speakers' engagements with multilingualism, this article examines two transnational sites of Indigenous language use in Bolivia—a master's program in bilingual intercultural education in Cochabamba and a hip hop collective in El Alto. Responding to the call for a sociolinguistics of globalization that describes and interprets mobile linguistic resources, speakers, and markets, we draw on long-term ethnographic fieldwork to explore the transnational nature of these mobile and globalized sites, ideologies of Indigenous language and identity present there, and flexible language practices therein. From our analysis of selected narratives and interactions observed and recorded between 2004 and 2009, we argue that these sites, ideologies, and language practices constitute productive spaces for Indigenous language speakers to intervene in a historically and enduringly unequal, globalizing world. (Indigeneity, mobility, translanguaging, flexible language practices, multilingual repertoire, global hip hop)*

This article presents a quantitative variationist analysis of the English restrictive relative pronouns. However, where previous research has largely focused on language-internal explanations for variant choice, the focus here is the social meaning of this erstwhile syntactic variable. We uncover rich sociolinguistic embedding of the relative pronouns in standard, urban speech. The only productive wh- form is who, which continues to pattern as a prestige form centuries after its linguistic specialization as a human subject relative. This legacy of prestige is reflected not only in the social characteristics of those with whom it is associated, but also in the patterns of accommodation that are visible in its use. These findings simultaneously demonstrate the tenacious nature of social meaning and the enduring effects of grammatical ideology, both of which influence pronoun choice in the context of face-to-face interaction. (Restrictive relative pronouns, who, change from above, age-grading, prestige, accommodation)*

Newspaper reports, political policy papers, and investigations by social scientists concerning issues related to the presence of a community of migrant workers in Belgium are subjected to a systematic, pragmatic analysis. The analysis reveals an eminently coherent world of beliefs and attitudes with respect to (1) perceptions of the “other,” (2) the self-perception of majority members, (3) formulations of “the problem,” and (4) proposed solutions. This world of beliefs and attitudes is shown to be centered around stable – even if vague – notions of culture, nation and state, democracy and human rights, and around related recipes for “integration” that reveal a collective psyche profoundly troubled by the very idea of diversity in society (linguistic or otherwise). Homogeneity appears to be a strict norm for average members of Belgian society, irrespective of the specific political positions they take. (Minority politics, language and ideology, pragmatics, political rhetoric, news reporting, ethnicity)

This study examines how speakers on certain TV interview programs resolve problems of agreement with formally singular epicene antecedents. The form most frequently used is they, although he does appear fairly often. Some forms found in written English hardly occur. It appears that they is not used simply to avoid a commitment to gender. Rather, three factors appear to contribute to speakers' choice of pronominal: presuppositions about gender roles associated with the referent, notional number of the referent, and the extent to which the referent can be posited as a specific individual. The idea that there is a gap in third person singular pronouns in spoken English is criticized. (Pronominal gender, agreement, semantics, usage, English)

The discourse on the opening of a bilingual university along the Texas-Mexico border leads us to propose a theory of ‘converse racialization’ through which the local Spanish is being progressively ‘unmarked’ and disassociated from the language practice of Mexican Americans. Converse racialization, as the equal and opposite co-constituting underside of racialization, shifts the directionality of semiotic indexes away from a particular ‘race’ or ‘ethnicity’ (including whiteness) and produces an apparent state of ‘unmarkedness’. We argue that the process of ‘unmarking’ Spanish has social, economic, and racializing consequences. Specifically, the language-as-resource discourse obscures and rearticulates the ‘deficiency perspective’ that continues to perpetuate structural inequalities that Latinxs in the border face. (Racialization, higher education, critical race theory, bilingualism, neoliberalism)*

The present study's aim is to pinpoint the characteristics of verbal socialization in family interaction in five different sociocultural contexts. Families with early adolescent children (M = 11.5 years) were compared with regard to regulatory comments issued during family mealtimes. Three monocultural groups consisted of 20 Estonian, 20 Swedish, and 20 Finnish families living in their countries of origin; two bicultural and bilingual groups consisted of 20 Estonian and 20 Finnish families residing in Sweden. Regulatory comments were defined as utterances aimed at influencing the conversational partner to behave according to social and conversational rules. Contrary to expectations, cultural differences were not found in discussions dealing with table manners and conversational rules, but the number of comments on perceived violations of moral rules was much greater in the Swedish material. Swedish early adolescents commented significantly more than their Estonian and Finnish counterparts, indicating more asymmetrical communication in Estonian and Finnish families.

This article analyzes the connections between the oral genres displayed by Gitano (Spanish Gypsy) children and adults during religious instruction classes at an Evangelist church and the writings produced by Gitano children in an after-school computer program in the same community. Results are discussed in relation to two strands of received assumptions regarding Gypsy culture and recent theoretical insights in the study of literacy and discourse. On one hand, previous portraits of Gitano culture as exclusively oral need to be revised, in line with a more social and situated perspective on literacy. On the other, the results are a basis for critical examination of dominant explanations regarding the educational failure of Gitano children, an argument that highlights the importance of engaging intratextual linguistic analysis with discussions of the social and institutional orders.We first thank the research participants for their warm welcome to the different sites that are part of this study. We also thank two anonymous reviewers for their comments. This study began when David Poveda worked in the School of Education and Humanities of the University of Castilla-La Mancha, where Ana Cano and Manuel Palomares-Valera completed their training. The research project was funded by the University of Castilla-La Mancha through an internal research grant (Principal Investigator: Beatriz Martín).

This article presents ethnographic data emerging from research with a group of LGBT young people, detailing the construction of a shared identity. Using discourse analysis, it shows how the group members position people of South Asian descent as a homogenous out-group, one framed as ‘other’ to their own in-group identity of ‘non-Asian’ due to the assumption that Asian people are homophobic. It is argued that this very local form of identity construction is facilitated by broader discourses of Islamophobia, as well as homonormative ideologies positioning gay people as white. The article therefore provides evidence to support Bucholtz & Hall's (2005) claim that identity positioning relates not only to the interactional moment and the norms of a given ethnographic context, but that it also encompasses macro-level discourses and ideologies. It also, however, reveals the pervasiveness of Islamophobic discourses in Britain today, and the marginalisation of LGBT people of colour. (LGBT identity, racist discourse, homonormativity, Islamophobia)*

In many societies the relative social status of different social and cultural groups results in hegemonic relationships or an ‘order’ which manifests itself as sets of taken-for-granted societal norms or ideologies which influence behavior, including linguistic behavior. I label this concept the culture order, and propose it as a potential sociolinguistic universal. Drawing on the research of the Language in the Workplace Project (LWP) team, I provide evidence of some of the complex components of the New Zealand culture order. Using a social realist theoretical framework, and an interactional sociolinguistics approach, I identify a number of areas of contrast in the discourses instantiating the Māori and Pākehā culture orders (e.g. meeting norms, ways of criticising others), as well as discourse norms apparently shared by both groups (e.g. the Modesty Maxim; see Leech 2014). The complexities of these similarities and differences are discussed as well as their implications for hegemonic relationships. (Culture order, workplace discourse, sociolinguistic universals, egalitarianism, meeting norms)*

A great deal of interest has developed in the last few years in studying children's linguistic routines in interaction as a means toward understanding child cognitive development (see for example Mitchell-Kernan & Ervin-Tripp 1977). In this study we hope to extend the parameters of this line of research to include cross- cultural investigation. We also hope to shift the focus of investigation away from concentration on children's routinized usage of linguistic form to concentration on children's strategies in their total communicative behavior, both linguistic and non-linguistic.

The bibliography following the body of this paper contains a total of 1,092 entries on the subject of diglossia. Entries dealing with diglossia in the classical sense of Ferguson (1959) and in the sense of functional compartmentalization of distinct languages are represented approximately equally. Scholarly publication in the area of diglossia continues unabated as indicated by the fact that approximately one-half of the entries in the bibliography were published between 1983 and 1992. However, there remains a need for a comprehensive integration, comparative analysis, and socioevolutionary interpretation of diglossia research. (Bilingualism, diglossia, functional variation, literary languages, registers, standard languages, standardization)

The decree of 4 July, 1974, by President Kenyatta, proclaiming Swahili as the national language of Kenya is discussed with reference to questions of feasibility and expediency. The alternatives to the President's decree are considered, and reasons for the decision are suggested.

Comparison of the status of Swahili in the capital cities of Kenya (Nairobi) and Tanzania (Dar es Salaam) is made to illustrate the special difficulties confronting the Kenya government in making the President's decree effective. The parliamentary response is crucial, but the dominance of English in Nairobi, the capital city, where Swahili has not always been much valued, indicates a wider gap between intention and the possibility of fulfilment than in Dar es Salaam.

The need for proficiency in Swahili is viewed in the Kenya situation, and this is related to what is linguistically appropriate. The nationalization of Swahili results in secularization of a language that found its normal expression in the setting of Islam. What is linguistically appropriate in Swahili on the national level is often inappropriate to members of the Swahili coastal community. Kenyans are likely to opt for their own modifications of Standard Swahili, basing this on the Mombasa dialect, but up-country Swahili is the foundation upon which greater proficiency can be achieved. (Language planning, language policy, regional and social stratification of varieties, Swahili; Kenya, Tanzania.)

The linguistic foundation of Bernstein's code theory is tested in a bidimensional sociolinguistic investigation. Not only class, but also situation is controlled. In the Flemish town of Maaseik each of eight informants (four middle class and four working class) have been interviewed in two different situations, one formal and one informal. In the formal situation standard Netherlandic was spoken and in the informal the local dialect. Five measures of syntactic complexity constituted the linguistic variable. The results in the formal situation corroborate those of Bernstein: the middle-class subjects exhibit a greater degree of syntactic complexity than the working-class subjects. In the informal situation all subjects exhibit about the same degree of syntactic complexity, and for the middle-class subjects this degree is less than that in the formal situation (as might be expected). The striking result is that the working-class informants exhibit significantly higher complexity in the informal situation. In the discussion these findings are compared to those of previous studies, Bernsteinian and other. In an appendix sample data for formal and informal styles from one middle- and one working-class subject are presented. (‘elaborated’ and ‘restricted’ codes, social vs. cognitive meaning, syntactic variation; Flemish cf. Maaseik, Belgium).

In Bali, speech play is a cultural focus. Several of the many forms of Balinese speech play are investigated – puns, comebacks and verbal dueling, and pig-latin type play languages. These are examined in the context of everyday, informal speech and conversation, verbal routines and events such as storytelling and bargaining, and the artistic and ritual performances for which Bali is famous, such as shadow puppet plays and dance dramas. Attention is paid to the role of multilingualism in Balinese speech play, especially the intersection of the various languages and language levels in constant use in Bali. The significance of speech play in Balinese culture and society is explored. (Ethnography of speaking, speech play, humor, Bali, Indonesia)

This article has three key themes: ontology (what kinds of beings there are in the world), affect (cognitive and corporeal attunements to such entities), and selfhood (relatively reflexive centers of attunement). To explore these themes, I focus on women's care for chickens among speakers of Q'eqchi' Maya living in the cloud forests of highland Guatemala. Broadly speaking, I argue that these three themes are empirically, methodologically, and theoretically inseparable. In addition, the chicken is a particularly rich site for such ethnographic research because it is simultaneously self, alter, and object for its owners. To undertake this analysis, I adopt a semiotic stance towards such themes, partly grounded in the writings of the American pragmatists Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and George Herbert Mead, and partly grounded in recent and classic scholarship by linguists, psychologists, and anthropologists. (Linguistic anthropology, political economy, ontology, affect, selfhood, animals, chickens, Mesoamerica, Maya, Q'eqchi')*

This article treats a place-naming genre among residents of the White Mountain Apache reservation in which people use English-language mass media discourse to name newly constructed neighborhoods on the reservation, usually with humorous effect. It is argued that these names do not represent simple assimilation to mainstream discursive norms. Instead, they represent the deployment of media discourse according to locally defined speech genres and language ideology to comment on social changes brought about by the new housing developments. As a strategy for engaging with the dominant society, these names are acts of community self-definition that confound mainstream expectations for place names generally, and for Native American place names in particular. They celebrate participation in media discourse, but in terms that privilege reservation insiders. Use of these names constitutes the reservation as an interpretive community in which participation is defined not along nationalistic models of citizenship, but in terms of locally established idioms of sociality.I gratefully acknowledge financial support for this research provided by the Wenner Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, the Phillips Fund for Native American Research of the American Philosophical Society, and the Jacobs Research Fund of the Whatcom Museum. I thank Eva Lupe, Everett Lupe, Leo Cruz, Cline Griggs, Arlene Lupe, Annette Tenejieth, Gary Lupe, and John Welsh for helping me understand the meaning and use of the names. Particular thanks are due to Barbara Johnstone and two anonymous reviewers for Language in Society for suggesting revisions that substantially improved the argument of this article and its articulation with other work in linguistic anthropology. Earlier versions of this article were presented in a session organized by David Samuels at the 2002 annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, to the anthropology departments at Hamilton College and the University of Nevada, Reno; and to the University of Virginia Linguistic Anthropology Seminar. I am grateful for the critical contributions of Dell Hymes, Thomas J. Nevins, David Samuels, Margaret Field, Allexandra Jaffe, Ellen Contini-Morava, Eve Danziger, Phillip Greenfeld, Bonnie Urciuoli, and Charles Kaut. Any shortcomings, of course, are my own.

Discussions of Negro non-standard English (or Black English) emphasizes the most socially stigmatizing features. It is clear, however, that within anglophonic black communities a diglossia situation occurs in which the high form is a speaking variety close to oratorical standard English. This paper explores how this high variety is learned in one Afro-American peasant community in the West Indies as an illustration of the social and ritual importance of certain codes. (diglossia, Creole languages, the formal teaching of speech varieties, oratory.)