LINGUIST List 11.1553

Sat Jul 15 2000

Qs: Minimal Pairs, Int'l Business Communication

Editor for this issue: Karen Milligan <karenlinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Scobbie, Jim, Disc: Homophony and minimal pair counts cross-linguistically
2. JUAN ANTONIO PENA, Cross cultural business communication

Can anyone quantify the amount of homophony in different languages in major
category words? I don't know whether this is an unanswerable request, given
the difficulty of establishing criteria (let alone cross-linguistic
criteria) for distinguishing homophony (different headwords with same
phonology) from multiple subsenses of the same headword. 

Rather more easily, are there cross-linguistic quantifications of the
numbers of minimal pairs (in total, per contrast, relative to number of
items in the inventory) given a standard phonemic inventory?

I see there is a brief discussion of quantifying homophones and minimal
pairs in LINGUIST List 4.2 Wed 06 Jan 1993 by John Higgins, and my interest
was sparked.

Dear List members,
 My name is Juan Antonio Pena. I teach Business Communication in Spanish
at University of Puerto Rico. I am writing to you in look for your help.
 I am trying to locate different kinds of resources on international
business communication, language and culture barriers. Specifically, what
I am most interested in is how each country/people write differently, what
characteristics each people, culture, has. In other words, when one
communicates with another country, what differentiates the style of each
language: is length of sentences clearly different, do one people use
mostly a polished language while the other goes straight to the point, do
each country write salutations always with or without titles? This is a
very interesting topic, and one that is gaining importance given the surge
in global communication..
 I have searched the Library of Congress catalog, Amazon, my own
university, and, of course, Internet. However, and contrary to what I
expected, I have only found very few, indeed very few, references. 
 Since this research is for an international conference in September, I
wondered if you would know of an Internet site, journals, people...indeed
whatever, that could interest me. 
 I know this is a burden for you, but I would greatly appreciate your
help. 
Sincerely,
JAPena