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This article introduces the topics featured in the September 1989 issue of "International Journal of the Sociology of Language." This issue focuses on the rich linguistic heritage of Latinos in the U.S. The Spanish-speaking population in the U.S. presents a complex sociolinguistic situation which should be the object of further study. It is precisely the growth and diffusion of the Spanish-speaking population throughout the U.S., coupled with increased use of Spanish in bilingual education programs, voting services, and the courts, that has caused the criticisms raised by supporters of the English-only movement in the last decade.

This paper provides an Optimality Theoretic account of how Hungarian learners of English acquire /∊/ and /æ/. It is hypothesized that as the learners' pronunciation becomes more nativelike, Li transfer substitutions will diminish; non-transfer substitutions will be especially prevalent in the intermediate stages, and that all learners will have equal or greater success with the similar segment /∊/ than with the unfamiliar segment /∊/. A study involving eight Hungarian ESL learners and four American English subjects largely supports these hypotheses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The state of Washington has renewed support for bilingual education at the same time that the federal government and some other states are reducing or rechanneling bilingual education funds into English immersion programs. These programs have been exposed in the past as ineffective in reducing the high dropout rate of 45 to 55 percent in the nation's secondary schools which are largely attended by Puerto Rican and Chicano students. This paper outlines the need and support for bilingual education in the state of Washington, whose Chicano-Latino population numbers around 120,000 out of 4..5 million. An historical survey outlines the background which include community involvement, educational institutions, and government support. An inside look is provided into the new Title VII grant, which is the Educational Personnel Training Program received by Washington State University which provides for recruitment, preparation, study areas, coursework, and the Spanish Language Proficiency Examination.

This paper describes the production of word-final, utterance-medial /t, d/ in American English by native speakers and by three groups of nonnative speakers of English. Twenty-four nonnative subjects, whose native languages include Arabic, Korean, Spanish, and Thai, were rated by native English speakers as having no accent, a mild accent, or a medium to heavy accent in English. Measurement of five tokens each of /t/ and /d/ for each speaker and for 6 native English speakers were compared. Neither the Americans nor any of the nonnative groups significantly differentiated /t/ from /d/ by closure duration. As strength of accent rating increased, mean closure duration tended to increase. Also, as strength of accent rating increased, implementation of manner of stop consonant production (including flapping and aspirated versus nonaspirated release) tended to change. Results suggest that both duration and the ability to produce a number of durationally different release options in English may affect the degree of perceived foreignness.

This article analyzes four Hollywood films set in Hawai'i to shed light on how particular languages and language varieties style (Auer 2007; Coupland 2007) Local/Hawaiian and mainland U.S. characters as certain kinds of people. Through an analysis of films featuring haole ('white, outsider') male protagonists who are on various journeys in Hawai'i, we analyze how cultural difference is constructed through divergent language choice, mock languages, and acts of linguistic bridging by quasi-Local characters. We draw upon Communication Accommodation Theory (Giles & Coupland 1991) to explain how linguistic divergence establishes dichotomous characterizations through language choice and other non-accommodating behaviors. As our analysis shows, Hollywood styling perpetuates Orientalist discourses (Said 1978) about 'whiteness' and 'nativeness' by dichotomizing Local and Hawaiian people, and by characterizing Local characters as largely antagonistic toward outsiders. At the same time, the films attempt to avoid too close a linkage to colonialist discourses by establishing quasi-Local haole characters as linguistic 'buffers' who act as conduits for Hawaiian worldviews and Local knowledge, and who are styled linguistically as partially Local through their knowledge of Hawai'i Creole and Hawaiian. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study aims to explore the linguistic attitudes towards the different regional varieties of Spanish in a group of college-educated native speakers of Spanish. A survey was conducted among participants from diverse Spanish-speaking countries who lived in the United States. The main goals of the study were, in the first place, to determine whether these individuals were able to spontaneously attribute more (or less) prestige to a specific Spanish variety over others. Second, I attempted to analyze the rationale -- whether explicit or implicit -- behind their choice of a certain variety as more (or less) prestigious. Finally, I examined the extent to which their linguistic attitudes were motivated (or not) by any sort of ethno-linguistic loyalty towards their own speech communities. The results of the study substantiate previous research carried out in this field, but also reveal unforeseen findings, especially in regards to the less prestigious varieties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The articles in this special issue argue that entextualization—the process by which circulable texts are produced by extracting discourse from its original context and reifying it as a bounded object—is an indispensable mechanism for the construction of institutional authority. More specifically, they demonstrate that one particular mode of entextualization, that involving the inscription of speech into writing, plays an especially important role in modern institutions, as the transfixing power of the written record endows the institution with an enormous advantage in presenting itself as an authoritative voice that can define, describe, and discipline its subjects. The contributors to this special issue illustrate the role of entextualization in the consolidation of institutional power through the critical analysis of linguistic representation within three key institutions—the law, the media, and the academy—in a variety of languages and cultures in North America, Europe, and Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Typology has a low profile in much of American linguistics, especially outside of phonology (Nichols 2007, Hyman 2007, Van Valin 2007). Yet, as I will suggest, the study of the results and methods of modern typology has important lessons for us as the field of linguistics undergoes a paradigm shift. Typologists study a wide range of language types, but I will show that even when one does theoretical work on a single, well-studied standardized national language like English, one can (and should) benefit from an awareness of typological findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to explore the question regarding the possibilities of ideas crossing the Atlantic westbound. There are relatively few linguists in America who distinguish between the study of English and the study of natural language in general. Hence, this article attempts to point out how useful a comparison and combination of approaches coming from different areas may be for the study of semantics in its relationships to the syntactic structure of natural language, if this comparison is connected with a deeper understanding of the other's approach.