Ronald R. Butters

When is English 'Black English Vernacular'?

The theoretical question of the definition of the notion speech community has troubled linguists at least since Bloomfield: &dquo;A group of people who use the same system of speech-signals is a speechcommunity&dquo; (1933:29); &dquo;A speech-community is a group of people who interact by means of speech&dquo; (42). In the end Bloomfield concedes a certain amount of fuzzy-edgedness to the notion (as with so many other things in real science): &dquo;one cannot always tell which local groups form a single speech-community [because of] ... the differences within speech-communities.... We see the proof of this when an outsider comes into our midst: his speech may be so like ours as to cause not the slightest difficulty in communication, and yet strikingly noticeable on account of inessential differences such as ’accent’ and ’idiom’ &dquo; (4445). It is impressive to see Bloomfield, the arch-empiricist, appealing here to the intuitions of native speakers as an important--perhaps ultimate--arbitrator of who is or is not a member of a given speech community. And it is important to note that, in Bloomfield’s view, phonology (&dquo;accent&dquo;) and lexicon (&dquo;idiom&dquo;) are apparently the most difficult aspects of language for the outsider to learn like a native.

Syntactic Change in British English Propredicates

Because syntactic change in progress is a relatively rare phenomenon, the identification of any such change is an important linguistic event. Martin Joos in 1964 was apparently the first to point out one twentieth-century example in British (but not American) English--the variable lack of deletion in independent clauses of what he calls propredicates, 1 as in the following examples (all from Iris Murdoch’s 1970 novel A Fairly Honorable Defeat. 2

Chance as Cause of Language Variation and Change

The vast literature on the reasons why human languages inevitably change through time focuses on two types of causation, “functional” and “social.” My purpose here is to explore a third category of explanation, one that has largely been ignored or dismissed as seemingly inconsequential: I argue that a chance/chaos model of linguistic change is a necessary and important supplement to functional and social explanations. Functional causes include such factors as ease of utterance and learning, constraints on intelligibility, and a putative psychological pressure for symmetry in phonological and morphological systems (Lehman 1973, 176; see also Lass 1980). Thus, it can scarcely be disputed that changes in English that have regularized all but a small portion of the plural-formation morphology have functional causes, for example, that it is easier for children to learn a regular system than an irregular one. Similarly, when English lost most of its inflectional noun morphology, the increase in importance of word order to signal the relationships between the noun phrases of the sentence became a functional necessity. That social forces contribute to linguistic change is also clear. Younger people alter their speech so as to differentiate themselves from their elders. Islanders want to sound different from mainlanders. Middle-class speakers attempt to sound different from the working class, and vice versa. Men and women tend to speak the way that their sex is “supposed to” speak. In the end, sometimes consciously and sometimes unconsciously, people speak like the people they want to think of themselves as being; linguistic differentiation is a matter of the presentation of self in everyday life. However, a fundamental question remains even after the social and functional explanations are exhausted: only rarely do we have some sense of what gets the whole thing rolling in the first place—what Labov (1972, 162-63) terms the “actuation problem.” When Labov noted (1963) that some residents of Martha’s Vineyard were centralizing the onsets of the /aw/ diphthong, he was able to explain this particular linguistic change: these same speakers already had a centralized-onset diph

Semantic and pragmatic variability in medical research terms: Implications for obtaining meaningful informed consent

�It is a fundamental requirement of scientific research using human subjects that the investigators obtain the informed consent of those subjects. That is, prior to taking part in any project, subjects must receive and understand relevant information as to the goals of the research, the nature of the procedures to be followed, and the risks and potential benefits to the participants. However, what constitutes “relevant information” can be a complex question, and researchers are therefore generally required to submit informed-consent materials to review boards for approval. Some of the historical, ethical, and legal aspects of informed consent are summarized in appendix A. Linguists know well that the presentation of “relevant information” to people does not guarantee that subjects will fully “receive” it or that it will be properly “understood.” The very language that medical researchers use in advertising their projects and in obtaining informed consent can be as important and influential as the information itself in affecting the willingness of medical patients to serve as subjects in medical research (Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments [ACHRE] 1995, 748). Obviously, to prevent misunderstanding, sentence structure must be straightforward and free from ambiguity; medical jargon must be explained—if it is necessary to use it at all. Most perplexing, however, is ordinary-language word choice: the lexicon used during disclosure of informed-consent information must avoid connotations that could unduly and unreasonably influence potential subjects, and researchers must be particularly aware of

Semiotic Interpretation in Trademark Law: The Empirical Study of Commercial Meanings in American English of {▀▄▀▄▀▄▀▄▀▄▀▄▀▄▀▄} “Checkered Pattern”

In trademark law, commercial entities may assert a proprietary interest in images as well as words and sentences. No trademark may be “generic,” and even trademarked images have to mean something other than merely “a kind of thing.” Thus, a marketer of bananas could not prevent others from using all images of bananas in their advertising, though they could own a particular unique image of a banana (say, a blue one, half peeled). Thus, the use of “checkered patterns” (e.g., ▄▀▄▀▄▀▄▀▄▀▄▀▄▀▄) in product marketing exemplifies how the semiotic sense of signs can be crucial in trademark litigation. Checkered patterns are widely used ornamentally in packaging and advertising, and the issue of the acceptability of a particular pattern as a legitimate trademark depends in part upon the relevant public’s ordinary analysis of the meaning of the pattern in relationship to the product being identified. The issue of genericness arises because the checkered pattern in itself has identifiable meanings that extend beyond that of particular products: legal and semiotic issues arise as to whether a particular checkered pattern will be understood as signifying (1) a particular brand of products and services or (2) the general class to which the product or service belongs.

ROGER W. SHUY , Linguistics in the courtroom: A practical guide

Roger W. Shuy, Linguistics in the courtroom: A practical guide . New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Pp. xiv + 146. Hb

Forensic Linguistics Comes of Age@@@Language in the Judicial Process@@@Language Crimes: The Use and Abuse of Language Evidence in the Courtroom

35.00. The focus of Linguistics in the courtroom is narrower than the title implies: It is not intended for, say, linguists who are courtroom interpreters or those who are concerned with reforming jury instructions to make them more intelligible. Rather, this is a succinct, authoritative guidebook for linguists who give scientific advice to attorneys about linguistic issues in criminal and civil court cases. Consultants frequently are asked to write reports, filed under oath, that are intended to influence judges and worry opposing counsel; Roger Shuy cogently describes such documents, their purposes, and the processes for drawing them up (chapter 6). In civil cases, report writers are usually cross-examined under oath in a discovery procedure called a “deposition” (chapter 7). Occasionally, the linguist also appears as an expert witness in trial appearances before judges and juries (chapters 8–9). These chapters alone are well worth the price of the book.

UNSTRESSED VOWELS IN APPALACHIAN ENGLISH

Preface: New Directions. 1. Misconceptions about Language in Law Cases. 2. Bribery. 3. Offering Bribes. 4. Agreeing. 5. Threatening. 6. Admitting. 7. Telling the Truth Versus Perjury. 8. Promising. 9. Asking Questions. 10. On Testifying.

Narrative Go 'Say'

Publisher Summary This chapter focuses on the final unstressed schwa in Appalachian speech. Wolfram and Christians study is based upon lengthy taped interviews with 165 natives of two counties in southeastern West Virginia during 1974–1975. Despite recent attempts at bridging the gap between atlas dialectologists and those interested in language in society, at present, there persists something of a split between the two groups. The imperviousness is present on both sides. Social dialectologists have also neglected important work of the area linguists. Wolfram and Christian are clearly wrong in the assertion that the phonetic character of raised schwa is the high front (tense) vowel. Dialect geography thus offers several modifications of Wolfram and Christians assertion that schwa-raising affects only underlying schwa.