LINGUIST List 5.133

Sun 06 Feb 1994

Qs: Sociophonology, Subjects, CALL, Japanese

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1. Gertraud Benke, qs: gender and sociophonology/lexical variation
2. , Query: Subjects <- Comitatives
3. Lorraine R. Shaw, reasearch on CALL
4. "Jim Swanson", Effects of Japanese grammar on learning English

I am desperately trying to find references on sociophonology /lexical
variation dealing with gender/sex as interfereing variable since 1980
(or specially since 1985).
So far, I have got the impression, that the raising interest in women's
studies - specially in conversational analysis - has lead to a decline of
structural investigations of the variation of language when
it comes to the influence of gender /gender differences. This, of course,
concerns mainly those scientist who are mainly interested in gender issues.
Those concerned with variation in itself have not focused their work
on the influence of gender (but for some older articels of e.g. Trudgill,
and a more recent on of Labov (1990) in Language Variation and Change).

In short I would like to post the following two queries:
a. any comments to my "impression of the field"
b. any references on sociophonology / lexical variation dealing with gender as
 well

Please reply directly to me - I will sum up responses and mail them to the
Linguist List.

Thanks a lot!
 ---------------------------------------------
 Gertraud graduate student !
 Benke Linguistic Department, Applied Linguistics !
 University of Vienna, Austria !
 e-mail: gertraudiguwnext.tuwien.ac.at !

Does anybody know of an example of subject marking which
comes from a comitative construction, i.e., one expressing
accompaniment?

I'm looking for research on attitudes toward and effectiveness of
CALL (computer assisted language learning) among different cultural/ethnic
groups. If anyone knows of any studies done in this area, please let me
know. Many thanks.

Lorraine Ritacco

I have a student who needs some help in finding references in a paper
she is writing about the particular effects of Japanese grammar on
learning English as a second language. She is writing this paper
because she has come to realize that foreign speakers of various
languages have different kinds of problems in learning English. I
would appreciate hearing from anyone who can help her out.