The classic sociolinguistic opposition between status and solidarity as organizing principles of linguistic variation is currently being integrated with broader social theories of symbolic domination and resistance. However, not enough attention has yet been paid to the multiplicity and fluidity of both dominant and oppositional linguistic ideologies within a single social order. Changing elite conceptions about the links between language and social group vie with each other for supremacy, and are in turn contested by various forms of resistance among linguistic minorities. Debates surrounding the linguistic census in 19th and 20th century Hungary are used here as evidence about diverse dominant ideologies, to show how German-Hungarians have responded by producing multiple, competing, and ambiguous oppositional conceptions and linguistic practices. (Linguistic ideologies, forms of resistance, politics of language, minority languages, German speakers in Hungary).

This study explores the degree of cultural diversity in the dinner-table conversation narrative events of eight middle-class Jewish-American and eight Israeli families, matched on family constellation. Conceptualized in terms of a threefold framework of telling, tales, and tellers, the analysis reveals both shared and unshared narrative event properties. Narrative events unfold in both groups in similar patterns with respect to multiple participation in the telling, the prevalence of personal experience tales, and the respect for children's story-telling rights. Yet cultural styles come to the fore in regard to each realm as well as their interrelations. American families locate tales outside the home but close in time, ritualizing recounts of “today”; Israeli families favor tales more distant in time but closer to home. While most narratives foreground individual selves, Israeli families are more likely to recount shared events that center around the family “us” as protagonist. In modes of telling, American families claim access to story ownership through familiarity with the tale, celebrating monologic performances; but in Israeli families, ownership is achievable through polyphonic participation in the telling. (Ethnography of communication, language and culture, conversation analysis, folklore, narrative).

Applying the functional approach to language developed by Halliday and Hasan, this study delineates the criterial and characteristic features of language used in 13 peer review letters from a graduate seminar by native speakers of English, with an average length of 300–350 words. Examining discourse goals, global text structure, obligatory and optional elements, sequence and co-occurrence of discourse elements, verb types, modalized directives, and lexical choice, this article demonstrates that peer review texts are shaped by the institutional and situational contexts within which they are embedded, and at the same time contribute to these contexts. (Genre studies, interactive discourse analysis, written communication, systemic linguistics, peer review, classroom discourse)