MICHAEL BULLEY takes a wry look at the work of those linguists who consider that the essence of language can be found in our DNA.

A consideration of whether the teaching and learning of English as a foreign language is getting better or worse

MICHAEL DUFFY looks at the double negative in English and parallel constructions in some East Asian languages

AILING ZHANG makes a distinction between two kinds of English in China ‘to emphasize the absolute necessity of Standard English to be taught, instead of other varieties claimed by some linguists to be equally good’.

DONALD MacQUEEN flies a linguistic kite regarding how the rhotic/non-rhotic division might have arisen in the English of Restoration London in the seventeenth century.

A report on a distinguishing feature of the disputed but nonetheless vigorous Pidgin English of India

A new, varied and very practical application of linguistic science

An examination of a novel UK rising tone, with reference to its use in some other Anglophone countries

A reply to and development of David Taylor's ‘Demystifying word stress’ (ET48, Oct 96)

RICHARD ALLSOPP describes how his Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage (Oxford University Press) developed from ten shoeboxes in 1963 to a ground-breaking lexicographical triumph in 1996

JEROME BETTS considers the use of in and on in such frames as ‘I met him – the street’.

‘French continues to outclass the competition among English-speaking consumers of loanwords’

I am grateful to the editor for the chance to respond to Professor Simo Bobda's very interesting article. I do not really disagree with anything he says. Indeed I welcome his valuable contribution to the debate. I would like to see his article as complementing mine, especially where New Englishes are concerned. This is an area which I, perhaps pusillanimously, deliberately chose not to deal with. Nevertheless, I would make one or two comments.

SHARON GOODMAN describes the creation of a multimedia university course about English worldwide for students worldwide