The relationship between gender and advertising has been discussed extensively. Scholarly works have often emanated from the West and have principally centred on visual advertisements, rather than radio (which plays a critical role in the lives of many Africans). Most of these studies have centred on how women are represented in traditionally stereotyped ways. However, recent studies have shown decreases in these stereotypes as ways of responding to changes in gender roles. But do gender-related adverts from Africa reflect the changing statuses and roles of African women (some of which challenge traditional gender stereotypes)? This article investigates how women are represented in Ghanaian radio commercials and indicates whether such representations reproduce, reinforce, or challenge feminine practices. An analysis of thirty-seven gender-related adverts reveals that, although women are rarely represented as challenging gender stereotypes, they are sometimes represented as using certain traditionally stereotyped roles as sources of ‘power’ to challenge other stereotypes. (Advertising, gender stereotypes, women, radio, Ghana, ideals of femininity)*

Marketing research shows that organizations tailor communication for particular customer ‘segments’, but little is known about the live design of interaction for different categories. To investigate this, we examine telephone calls to a holiday sales call-centre (for ‘seniors’) and a university admissions call-centre (for ‘young’ students). While topically different, call-takers in both datasets requested callers’ email addresses in order to progress service. Using conversation analysis, we examine how these requests were designed, where and how ‘age’ was made relevant, and how subsequent service provision was handled in a way that matched callers’ presumed age categories. Contrastive to the static notion of ‘segments’, we show how recipient design is bound up with categorial considerations while being responsive to the live unfolding of actual interaction. The article demonstrates how a comparative collection-based approach can be used to analyse the relevance of social categories in situations where this is implicit or ambiguous. (Membership categorization, customer segmentation, conversation analysis, recipient design, requests, age)*

The Budget is a newspaper which has served Amish communities for over a hundred years by disseminating community news to Amish settlements across North America. The main feature of this newspaper are newsletters written by volunteers from local Amish settlements, called “scribes,” who report news and happenings from their church districts. In this study the generic characteristics of the newsletters are identified, as is their role in the reproduction of Amish cultural values. The newsletters display generic consistency demonstrated in the predictable location, form, and content of the components of the newsletter. Scribes' reports of community news report events which are central to maintaining the importance of the interpersonal basis of Amish community life, and serve to maintain those items as reportable and noteworthy topics in the Amish communicative economy. (Amish, genre, written communication)

An examination of recent changes in the color terminology of a Lurispeaking pepole in Iran shows a strong cultural basis of perception, categorization, and manipulation of colors. Compared to the familiar evolutionary model of the development of color categories, this case constitutes a slight deviation in the position of the colors brown and purple and suggests a qualification of the respective evolutionary stages as well as an expansion of the model's predictive hypotheses. (Color terms, evolutionary universals in linguistic change, Lur language, Iran.)

A complete course of psychotherapy provided extensive information about natural speech patterns of a male psychiatrist and a female patient. Contrary to assertions of the deferential function of tag questions, the patient's use of this form increased as she gained in self-confidence and improved her psychological adjustment. Qualitative analysis of the type, antecedents, and consequences of tag questions in sessions at the beginning and end of the therapy shows how the patient's use of the form reflects her growing independence. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of verbal interaction offer complementary benefits, and a two-stage research method is advocated. (Psychotherapeutic discourse, tag questions, pragmatics, sociolinguistics, psychotherapy process)

The present study examines two unprompted versions of the same story, related by a mother and daughter in separate sociolinguistic interviews. Following a quantitative intraspeaker comparison of their use of grammatical features associated with Appalachian English within the entirety of their interviews, this study undertakes a close reading of the narratives (along with additional passages from the daughter) to demonstrate the manner in which the two women construct their identities as “mother” and as “other” through conversational narrative and the use of local dialect features. Specifically, this article addresses the use of regional grammatical variables to enact speaker stances toward mothering, focusing on two women's independent recollections of a single incident and how these narratives dialogically construct the (m)other. (Language variation, Appalachian English, stancetaking, motherhood)*

There is nothing controversial about Keller's assertion that human beings operate according to a powerful maxim which he renders as “Talk like the others talk.” This is self-evidently true (although we could of course discuss precisely who “the others” might be). If it were not true, there would be, say, no local dialects. The fact that everyone who has grown up in the same community speaks in the same way therefore, in a sense, needs no discussion. It is always the case, as near enough as makes no difference.

Schiffrin 1984 has claimed that there is a speech activity called “sociable argument,” characterized by the presence of discursive features such as vulnerability of argumentative frames and cooperative strategies. Although a form of talk aptly labeled “sociable argument” undoubtedly exists, Schiffrin's analysis is problematic; the features she identifies as characteristic of this discursive category also show up in argument that is serious and non-sociable. This raises general questions about the nature of the criteria applicable to the definition of forms of talk. (Discourse analysis, argument, conflict, conversation, cooperation, rhetoric)

This article considers a particular contextualisation of the religious classical and practices associated with it within broader sets of linguistic resources or repertoires. Through a description and analysis of religious classical practices occurring in multilingual urban settings in the UK, the article employs the interpretive frame of performance to account for practice. An introductory overview of religious classical practices is provided, which is followed by a brief discussion of the theoretical considerations surrounding performance and entextualisation. This is followed by the sharing of ethnographic data that aim to demonstrate the performance-oriented and highly entextualised nature of religious classical practice. The article concludes with the suggestion that the latter is an example not only of a set of linguistic resources used predominantly for performative practice but has more in common with scripted theatrical performance than with other conventionally referential communicative practices. (Religious classical, language variety, performance, entextualisation, linguistic resources, linguistic repertoire, Muslim, multilingualism, practice)*

In acquiring language, children must acquire not only the structure of the language, but also the rules for using language appropriately in a wide variety of situations. Routines, or rituals, which occur in language provide a special opportunity for studying children's acquisition of this aspect of language because routines emphasize the rules of use over the lexical meaning. Furthermore, routines are limited in terms of the structures which are acceptable, thus naturally controlling for this variable. With the aim of expanding our knowledge of the process of acquisition of routines, this study reports the acquisition by children of a routine used at the end of meals by Cakchiquel-speaking Indians in Guatemala. (Routines, politeness formulas, linguistic socialization, linguistic input to children; Cakchiquel.)

Quotative be like is a much discussed variable linguistic feature recruited in this investigation in order to revisit the hypothesis of linguistic diffusion (Labov 2007) predicting re-ordering of original patterns by L2 populations. As a sociocognitively salient variant spreading above the level of conscious awareness, be like has been appropriated by adult speakers from two distinctive L2 English ecologies with a high degree of precision, a finding previously not reported in studies exploring the acquisition of structured variation. In this article, I explain how, supported by frequency and constraint complexity, sociocognitive salience may have contributed to the generally accurate replication of the variable grammar for be like and, by this token, how it can inform existing models of language change. (Sociocognitive salience, linguistic diffusion, L2 acquisition of structured variation, variationist sociolinguistics, World Englishes, be like)

The introduction of Portuguese relationship terms into a system used by the Carib-speaking Kalapalo is explained in terms of internal social developments rather than language contact or acculturation. Upper Xingu Society is described as a linguistically diverse communications network that operates within two types of situations: ‘personal’ situations which emphasize verbal codes and focus on individual relationships and roles, and ‘non-personal’ situations which emphasize non-verbal ritualized performance in an intervillage context, focusing on local group identity rather than the qualities of individual ‘persons’. The adoption of Portuguese terms represents an elaboration of the system by which certain kinds of male relatives are designated as ‘persons’, and in the context of interaction between men speaking mutually unintelligible languages has circumvented the problem of language loyalty for intervillage communication. (Lexical borrowing, language loyalty, relationship terms, South American languages.)

In recent years, the East End of London has been dramatically transformed from a poor, working-class area, to one of the most fashionable neighbourhoods in the world. Adding to a growing body of research which examines the sociolinguistic dynamics of gentrifying neighbourhoods, this article draws on data from two ethnographic projects to examine how young people from the gentrified (i.e. working-class) and gentrifier (i.e. middle-class) communities index place attachment in East London. I demonstrate that for the gentrified community, place attachment is related to the ethnic and cultural genealogy of the immediate, local neighbourhood. Whilst for the gentrifiers, place identity is associated with the cosmopolitan economic and social opportunities of the city. I argue that whilst these communities occupy the same physical neighbourhood, these discourses suggest that they conceptually and socioculturally reside in two very different cities. (Gentrification, place, space, East London)*

This article uses data from interviews conducted in western North Carolina in order to examine the ways in which speakers enact authoritative, evaluative, and interactional stances to construct individual identity. In this data, we find a subtle interplay between the content of explicit statements, narrative content, and the use of grammatical features associated with Appalachian English (e.g. a-prefixing, nonstandard past tense), and the use of physical artifacts as sources of stance-taking. This article focuses on two speakers' use of (present and not-present) physical artifacts (a placemat, a Civil War era sword, a lock of hair, and a piece of wood with a bullet hole in it) to enact stances that construct individual versions of an Appalachian identity. What this analysis suggests is that it is not just linguistic choices that contribute to stance enactment, but physical objects as well. (Sociolinguistics, stance-taking, Appalachian English, material culture, language and idenity)*

One key aspect of threat in terrorists’ language is incitement to violence. Contributing to a fuller understanding of how terrorists use language to encourage people to join their cause, this article examines the role of evaluative language in incitement strategies used by a far-rightist to align with and alienate particular social groups. The Affiliation framework (Knight 2010a; Zappavigna 2011; Etaywe & Zappavigna 2021; Etaywe 2022a), as grounded in systemic functional linguistics, is used to understand how values and social bonds are leveraged in the process of incitement, as explored in a manifesto published online by Brenton Tarrant, preceding his 2019 terrorist attack on two mosques in New Zealand. The findings reveal two main affiliation strategies used for incitement: communion (forging solidarity and alignments) and alienation. These strategies function to construct opposing social groups in discourse, with the condemned groups positioned as a threat, hostility legitimated as morally reasonable, and violence as warranted. (Far-right extremism, incitement, hate crimes, affiliation, morality of terrorism, forensic linguistics, conspiracy theory discourse)

Previous analyses of children's disputes have concentrated on the use of various strategies within discrete activity contexts. Using data from an ethnographic study of an integrated kindergarten, it is suggested that children's disputes are strongly influenced by the activity and role structure of a given event, and that variations in how an event is contextualized are linked to the social structure of the classroom. Analytical problems in studying disputes from this perspective are also discussed. They include determining the speaker's focus, coping with multiple contexts, and selecting the level of analysis. (Developmental sociolinguistics, children's social behavior, peer interaction, analytic problems, American English)

The linguistic domain of idiomaticity poses many problems for the study of language form, use, and variation. With selected aspects of idiomaticity as a starting point, I will attempt in this paper to develop a description of the use of idioms as a segment of a more general theory of language use. Evidence for this approach is drawn from international amateur radio talk (IART) in English.

This study explores the link between prosody and other-repetition in a moderately large collection from everyday English talk-in-interaction (n = 200). British English and North American English cases were analysed separately in order to track possible varietal differences. Of initial interest was the question whether focal pitch accents might disambiguate among other-repetition actions, both those related to repair and those that go beyond repair. The results indicate that only two out of six possible other-repetition actions are associated with distinct focal pitch contours in the two varieties. For all other repair and beyond-repair actions speakers use many of the same pitch contours nondistinctively. Overall, falling contours appear more frequently in British other-repetitions, while rising contours are more frequent in North American other-repetitions. In conclusion, it is argued that in addition to pitch contour, prosodic features such as pitch span, loudness, and timing are crucial in distinguishing other-repetition actions, as are nonprosodic factors such as epistemic access (often reflected in oh-prefacing) and visible behavior. (Repair initiation, surprise, challenge, registering, pitch accents, oh-preface, epistemics)*