LINGUIST List 10.664

Wed May 5 1999

Books: Sociolinguistics

Editor for this issue: Scott Fults <scottlinguistlist.org>

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Directory

Paul Peranteau, Language Legislation, New Zealand English Grammar

Message 1: Language Legislation, New Zealand English Grammar

Date: Mon, 03 May 1999 20:40:20 -0400
From: Paul Peranteau <paulbenjamins.com>
Subject: Language Legislation, New Zealand English Grammar

John Benjamins announces the publication of these two new works in Sociolinguistics:

Language Legislation and Linguistic Rights. Selected Proceedings of the Language Legislation and Linguistic Rights Conference, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, March, 1996. Douglas A. KIBBEE (ed.) IMPACT: Studies in Language and Society 2 US & Canada: 1 55619 851 5 / USD 79.00 (Hardcover) Rest of world: 90 272 1832 3 / NLG 158.00 (Hardcover)

The contributions to this volume cover a broad range of issues in language policy that are hotly debated in every corner of the globe. The articles included investigate the implications of language policies on the notion of language rights as the issues are played out in very specific circumstances - from the courtroom in Australia to the legislature in California to the educational system in England to the administrative practices of the European Commission. The authors explore conflicts between basic conceptions of fairness in justice, administration and education on the one hand, and political and economic realities on the other. Articles focus on langage issues in the United States, Canada, Brazil, England, France, Slovakia, Russia, Sri Lanka, Australia and several African states. Other articles consider the implications of new supernational agreements - the European Union, NAFTA, GATT, the OAU - on language issues in the signatory states. In sum the volume offers an extensive presentation of current issues and practices in language policy and linguistic human rights.

Contributions by: Chris Andre; Richard Bailey; Norine Berenz; Louis-Jean Calvet; James Crawford; Douglas Kibbee; Mikl\243s Kontra; Normand Labrie; Kahambo Mateene; Patricia Macgregor-Mendoza; Yves Marek; Ruth Morris; Michel Nguessan; Sheila Nmusi; Gerald Paquette; Carsten Quell; Thomas Ricento; Elena Schmitt; Kate Storey; Joyce B. Sukumane; Joan Swann; Terence G. Wiley.

New Zealand English Grammar - Fact or Fiction? A corpus-based study in morphosyntactic variation. Marianne HUNDT Varieties of English Around the World G23 US & Canada: 1 55619 721 7 / USD 59.00 (Hardcover) Rest of world: 90 272 4881 8 / NLG 118.00 (Hardcover)

New Zealand English (NZE) is one of the younger post-colonial varieties of English. It is therefore not surprising that previous research focused on lexical and phonological aspects of NZE and practically neglected grammatical peculiarities. New Zealand English Grammar - Fact or Fiction? presents a careful comparative analysis of parallel corpora of New Zealand, British, American and Australian English in order to single out morphological, syntactic and lexico-grammatical features typical of an emerging New Zealand standard. In addition to corpus data on regional variation, the author uses data on short-term diachronic change within British and American English to show how regional variation is closely related to both stylistic variation (a world-wide colloquialisation of the written norms of English) and ongoing linguistic change leading to temporal regional differences. NZE is different from other national varieties of English in terms of preferences for certain variants rather than categorically different grammatical rules. Nevertheless, it is a standard in its own right in so far as it is a typical mix of variants available in World English. The methodological approach combines both qualitative analyses and statistical evidence. The question in how far statistically significant differences in word frequencies can be shown to be linguistically significant is also relevant for other quantitative research into emerging national standards.

John Benjamins Publishing Co. P O Box 27519 Philadelphia PA 19118 Ph: 215 836-1200 Fax: 215 836-1204 Website: http://www.benjamins.com

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