It don't go both ways: Limited bidirectionality in sociolinguistic perception

This article explores the sociolinguistic perception of morphosyntactic variation, using sociolinguistic priming experiments. Two experiments tested participants' perception of the connection between social status and variation in two English subject‐verb agreement constructions: there's+NP and NP+don't. Experiment 1 tested sentence perception and found that exposure to non‐standard agreement boosted the perception of non‐standard agreement, but only for there's+NP. Social status cues had no effect on sentence perception. Experiment 2 tested speaker perception and found that participants were more likely to believe that non‐standard agreement was produced by low‐status than high‐status speakers. Results suggest that, especially for heavily stigmatized variables, non‐standard sentences strongly constrain the social judgments made by speakers, yet social cues do not necessarily constrain linguistic perception. The results suggest that the perceptual relationship between linguistic and social knowledge may be one of only limited bidirectionality. Implications for sociolinguistic perception and exemplar‐theoretic accounts of sociolinguistic competence are discussed.     

Fieldwork in forbidden terrain: the state,privatization and human subjects regulations

In this paper we explore the intersection of the modern-state and fieldwork practices within the social sciences. Our contention is that during the past decade or so there has been an expansion in forbidden or restricted research terrain that threatens the present and future conduct of social research. We argue that this restriction has been engendered by two related developments: privatization and human subjects regulations. The social and political implications of these trends are considered. Her most recent books areMadwives: Schizophrenic Women in the 1950s (Rutgers University Press, 1987) andGender Issues in Field Research (Sage, 1988). He is the author ofCastles of Our Conscience: Social Control and the American State, 1800–1985 (Forthcoming, Polity Press, Cambridge, U.K.)     

Consecration and meritocracy in elite business schools: The case of a Swedish student union

Sociologists are paying increasing attention to the business and financial elites that control today's global economy; indeed, there's a great need to understand who these elites are, what they do, and what makes them tick, as individuals, and as a class. But we also need to understand how the economic elites aremade in the current social and economic system, and one significant way of doing this, is by examining elite business schools, that is, the institutions that aim to train and prepare people to assume important leadership and decision-making positions in business, finance and related sectors of critical importance to the management of modern capitalism. Based on the notion of consecration, I empirically examine how the student union of Sweden's premier business school, The Stockholm School of Economics, offers its members a learning environment partly separated from the school, and how this semi-independent organization contributes to making undergraduate students socially, morally and esthetically meritorious for elite jobs in primarily management consulting and finance; a process that is largely shaped by corporate actors that participate formally and informally in the student union activities. The paper contributes to the sociological literature on business schools and higher education and elites, both theoretically through the twin notions of meritocracy and consecration, and empirically through its unique focus on student union activities in an elite business school setting.     

Grammaticalisation in social context: The emergence of a new English pronoun

The paper documents the early stages of grammaticalisation of a new first person singular pronoun, man, used in multi‐ethnic adolescent peer groups in inner cities of the U.K. I argue that the pronoun derives from a plural noun man, which is used in the peer groups to refer to a group of individuals whose precise composition is defined by the linguistic or situational context. The recruitment of man as a pronoun is encouraged by the frequent use of its homonym as a pragmatic marker and address form in the peer groups, and by the locally salient connotations of some uses of the singular noun man. The functions of the plural noun and the pragmatic marker are reflected in the two main rhetorical functions of the new pronoun: adolescent speakers use the man pronoun to position themselves as members of a contextually defined group and thereby provide authority for their opinions or mitigate a potentially face‐threatening act, and they also use it to solicit empathy from their interlocutor or construct solidarity. I suggest that a compositional model of the semantics of pronouns can account for the emergence of the new pronoun.     

How Kids Learn to Say the Darnedest Things: The Effect of Multiple Exemplar Instruction on the Emergence of Novel Verb Usage

We report experiments using time-lagged pre- and postintervention designs with (a) 4 first graders with learning delays, and (b) a systematic replication with 3 preschoolers with learning delays. Both experiments tested the effects of multiple exemplar instructional procedures (MEI) on the emergence of untaught past tense emission of novel regular verbs (e.g., jumped derived from jump) and grammatically inaccurate but experimentally correct usage of irregular verbs (e.g., singed derived from sing). Prior to the MEI, none of the children could produce regular or irregular past tense forms to pictures that provided simulated contexts (pictures with backgrounds for past and present tense). MEI provided across the picture contexts for past and present tense used separate training sets of verbs to teach children to form regular past tense. After either 1 or 2 MEI training sets, the children emitted accurate past tense forms of the untaught regular and inaccurate, but experimentally correct irregular verbs. These findings provided an instructional history that resulted in the children''s acquisition of past tense for untaught regular past tense verbs and “creative” errors with irregular tenses. Results are discussed in terms of the research on experimentally induced sources for novel verbal behavior and related interpretations.     

Stimulus equivalence, generalization, and contextual stimulus control in verbal classes

Stimulus generalization and contextual control affect the development of equivalence classes. Experiment 1 demonstrated primary stimulus generalization from the members of trained equivalence classes. Adults were taught to match six spoken Icelandic nouns and corresponding printed words and pictures to one another in computerized three-choice matching-to-sample tasks. Tests confirmed that six equivalence classes had formed. Without further training, plural forms of the stimuli were presented in tests for all matching performances. All participants demonstrated virtually errorless performances. In Experiment 2, classifications of the nouns used in Experiment 1 were brought under contextual control. Three nouns were feminine and three were masculine. The match-to-sample training taught participants to select a comparison of the same number as the sample (i.e., singular or plural) in the presence of contextual stimulus A regardless of noun gender. Concurrently, in the presence of contextual stimulus B, participants were taught to select a comparison of the same gender as the sample (i.e., feminine or masculine), regardless of number. Generalization was assessed using a card-sorting test. All participants eventually sorted the cards correctly into gender and number stimulus classes. When printed words used in training were replaced by their picture equivalents, participants demonstrated almost errorless performances.     

Shared spaces,shared structures: Latino social formation and African American English in the U.S. south

This study examines the appropriation of grammatical structures of African American English (AAE) by adolescent Latinos attending a multi‐ethnic middle school in North Carolina. The study couples quantitative variationist analysis of four ‘core’ grammatical features of AAE (invariant be, copula deletion, past‐tense copula leveling, and third‐person singular –s absence) with the findings of an ethnographic study of Latino adolescent identity in order to better understand the social processes leading to the incorporation of AAE grammar into English varieties spoken by Latinos. Results show that Latino students from across social formations make use of AAE grammatical features, but differ significantly from African American students in terms of sociolinguistic patterning. Ethnographic data shed light on linguistic data in three domains: (1) differences in use of AAE structures between male and female Latino/a students; (2) the prolific use of AAE by one gang‐affiliated student; and (3) the racial complexities within the ethnic category ‘Latino.’     

'A cook book to be read. What about it?': Alice Toklas,Gertrude Stein and the Language of the Kitchen

Abstract

This essay analyses the way that the writings of Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas use food as part of a poetics of intimacy and argues that the continuity between art and the everyday in Stein's Tender Buttons (1914) and in The Alice B Toklas Cookbook (1954) can be read as a trace of the way that both women acted as the constant and moving background to each other's lives and texts. The paper proposes that Toklas's highly involved, expensive and often impractical recipes provide a meditation on wider and more complex desires than just bodily hunger, particularly at the time of Toklas and Stein's stay in occupied France and after Stein's death in 1946 when Toklas wrote the Cookbook to avoid having to sell Stein's collection of early twentieth century masterpieces. The paper finds antecedents for both the quality of 'obstinate and homely shrewdness' in Stein and Toklas's texts in the brusque and authoritative women's voices captured in nineteenth century cookbooks and suggests that through the fetish status of the nouns in both recipes and in poetry Gertrude and Alice use the reciprocal making and writing of food to articulate, represent and direct desire.     

When dogs meow: An electrophysiological study of lexical–semantic processing in toddlers

The goal of this study was to investigate lexical–semantic processing at an early phase of language development. Adults often communicate with children using infant-directed speech that typically involves lexical and syntactic modifications such as onomatopoeias (Soderstrom, 2007). Here, we asked how and when children start to show an advantage for processing conventional linguistic forms, such as common nouns, and consequently decreasing sensitivity to onomatopoeias. We recorded event-related brain potentials in children of two age groups (16–21 months and 24–31 months) and in an adult control group during the presentation of four conditions in which either common nouns or onomatopoeias were presented auditorily followed by a picture of an either congruent or incongruent object. We focused on the N400 effect, a more negative ERP response to incongruent compared with congruent semantic relations. The younger children showed an N400 effect only for onomatopoeic words, while the older children showed an N400 effect only for common nouns. The adults showed N400 effects for onomatopoeia and nouns. These different N400 effects suggest that onomatopoeia and common nouns are differently organized in children's semantic memory and that the acquisition of linguistic abilities affects and modifies semantic processing of different lexical information.     

The effects of daily alendronate,daily calcitonin and alendronate every other day on bone mineral density in osteoporotic men

Objectives. Biphosphonates have been widely used in the treatment of osteoporosis, but there is not enough data on their use in men. The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of twelve months' treatment with daily 10 mg alendronate, every other day 10 mg alendronate and daily 200 IU calcitonin on bone mineral density (BMD) in men with osteoporosis.

Materials and methods. 46 men with osteoporosis were randomly allocated to three groups: 15 patients in the first group received daily 10 mg alendronate and calcium (1000 mg/day), 14 patients in the second group used every other day 10 mg alendronate and calcium and 17 patients in the third group were given intranasal salmon calcitonin and calcium. At the baseline, sixth and twelfth months, BMD was measured at lumbar spine (L_2–4), femoral neck and Ward's triangle zone by means of dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (LUNAR).

Results. In daily and every other day alendronate and calcitonin groups there was a significant increase in BMD at lumbar spine (p = 0.004, p = 0.001, p = 0.04), but no difference at the femoral neck (p > 0.05) at the end of twelve months. When the groups were compared with each other, no significant differences in BMD levels at lumbar spine, femoral neck and Ward's triangle were found (p > 0.05).     

Variations in carbon dioxide fluxes within a city landscape: Identifying a vehicular influence

To date, studies examining carbon dioxide (CO₂) fluxes in urban areas have been limited compared to those in rural environments. The objectives of our study were to examine the relationship between traffic volume and CO₂ fluxes. We demonstrated that CO₂ fluxes were strongly linked with surrounding land use, specifically impervious surfaces and traffic volume. A site near downtown Syracuse in New York State (USA) had relatively constant positive fluxes (source: +39 μmol CO₂ m^?2 s^?1) throughout the year as a result of strong vehicular traffic influence from two nearby interstate highways. There was a strong positive relationship between traffic and CO₂ fluxes (r²?=?0.93, p?<?0.0001) with marked differences between the weekend days versus the workweek days. In contrast, a residential site in Syracuse was dominated by vegetative influences during the leaf-on period due to CO₂ uptake by photosynthesis, reaching a maximum negative mean diurnal flux of ?11 μmol CO₂ m^?2 s^?1 around midday (sink). The spatial variations of CO₂ fluxes identify the critical role played by local traffic volumes in affecting the CO₂ dynamics of urban environments. Understanding the dynamic fluxes of CO₂ in urban environments has important implications for local, regional and global evaluations of CO₂ budgets and inventories, and carbon cycle and climate modeling.     

A response to 'factitious disorders by proxy: A trap for the unwary' Parent induced illness,factitious illness by proxy (Munchausen by proxy)

Abstract

Introduction This form of child abuse is quite rare but perhaps not as unusual as the figures imply. The name itself and the recent changes confirm that there is increasing awareness of its significance; Munchausen Syndrome by proxy has been changed to factitious illness by proxy or parent induced illness. Roy Meadow (1977, 1982, 1990), first drew attention to this form of abuse where parents present their child with an organic illness. Bools et al (1994) has developed the work and there has been a recent important article from Gray and Bentovim (1996), based on work at Great Ormond Street Hospital. The complexity and diversity of these cases and the range of presentations seem to be part of the problem in recognition. An outline of the emergence of awareness of this form of child abuse and a review of the literature is well covered in the article 'Factitious disorders by proxy' (Randall & Parker, 1997). While drawing this difficult and complex form of abuse to the attention of professionals, what we would suggest is also needed is both an outline of the various forms of presentations and some thoughts about the processes that are present both within the professional system, intrafamilially, and intraphysically.     

Understanding Careers Work

Careers education and guidance work in Britain over the past 80 years is set out as a narrative. At each stage there are questions about why preferred actions are preferred. The author provides explanations in terms of both developing theoretical and policy rationales for action.     

Literary perceptions of the aborigine after 1838∗

This paper traces the emergence in nineteenth‐century ethnographic thought of a three‐tiered classification of society and history following the appearance of Auguste Comte's Cours de philosophie positive (1830–1842). Adaptations of Comte's new formula to a variety of historical and social settings in fictional and other prose works paved the way for its eventual use by Achebe as the ground plan for his interpretation of the African past in Things Fall Apart. Works paving the way for this reconstruction include novels and other texts by D. H. Lawrence and various early twentieth and nineteenth century novelists as well as the ethnographic, critical and scholarly work of Matthew Arnold, Sir Edward Tylor, and Jane Harrison. Perceptions of the hunter‐gatherer phase of African social organization and the nineteenth‐century use of the term ‘aborigine’ to designate this ancient condition of society are suggested as the probable origins of a much used, versatile paradigm. Its applicability to the southern African situation in Bessie Head's Maru stems, it is suggested, from the origin of the three‐tiered system itself in early processes of communication between Europe and southern Africa.     

A New Approach to Religious Commitment

Abstract

The authors propose a new framework for studying religious commitment. Commitment is viewed as a general social process which occurs in various aspects of life (e.g., marriage, work, politics, and religion). It consists of subjective and behavioral components. Religious commitment is defined as the interaction between people's religious consciousness and religious participation. Other religious beliefs, feelings, and intellectual inclinations are considered to be parts of people's religious orientations, not aspects of commitment as other approaches have suggested. Data from members of six Christian denominations are used to explore this conceptualization and the relationships among these variables. Some determinants and consequences of commitment also are considered. The evidence yields several propositions regarding factors that affect commitment and the effects of religion on people's attitudes and behaviors. The paper's implications for future research on religious commitment in particular and commitment in general also are discussed.     

Associations Between Adolescents' Antisocial Behavior,Conflict Management Styles,and Romantic Relationship Breakup: An Observational Study

Adolescents' antisocial behavior and negative conflict management styles are each associated with adverse romantic relationship outcomes, yet little research exists on their associations. We investigated whether adolescents' antisocial behavior was associated with conflict management styles, and whether it predicted breakup 3 months later. In total, 91 adolescent couples (M_age = 16.43, SD = 0.99; 41.2% Hispanic/Latinx) participated in videotaped conflict discussions coded for negotiation, coercion, and avoidance. Actor–partner interdependence models suggest adolescents' antisocial behavior is associated with decreased use of negotiation (couple pattern) and increased use of coercion (actor pattern). No significant associations were found for avoidance. Neither antisocial behavior nor conflict management styles predicted breakup. Findings are discussed in light of the unique developmental importance of adolescents' romantic relationships.     

Infants' Acquisition of Grammatical Gender Dependencies

To successfully understand spoken language, listeners need to determine how words within sentences relate to one another. Although the ability to compute relationships between word categories is known to develop early in life, little research has been conducted on infants' early sensitivity to subcategorical dependencies, such as those evoked by grammatical gender (where the article form is dictated by the noun's gender). This study therefore examines whether French‐learning 18‐month‐olds track such relationships. Using the Visual Fixation Procedure, infants were presented with article–noun sequences in which the gender‐marked article either matched (e.g., la_FEM poussette_FEM “the stroller”) or mismatched (e.g., le_MASC poussette_FEM) the gender of the noun. A clear preference for correct over incorrect co‐occurrences was observed, suggesting that by 18 months of age, children's storage and access of words is sufficiently sophisticated to include the means to track subcategorical dependencies. This early sensitivity to gender information may be greatly beneficial for constraining lexical access during online language processing.     

Converging glances: A response to Cathy Caruth's ‘parting words’

Abstract

This essay empasizes the dimensions of opticality in Freud's Beyond the Pleasure Principle and in Caruth's Parting Words. Thinking how to move from the ‘o‐o‐o‐o’ to the ‘a‐a‐a‐a’ central to the Fort/Da game, suggest that ‘u’ must be drawn into the creative act that inspires testimony, critical theory, psychoanalysis and love.     

Carbon fluxes and nitrogen availability along an urban–rural gradient in a desert landscape

Urbanization is increasing in arid and semi-arid regions of the world and impacting native ecosystems through disturbance, climatic modification, and pollution deposition. Arid ecosystems often exhibit a mosaic of shrub/tree canopy covered and non-canopy covered patches that differ in elemental pools and processes. We measured belowground ecosystem attributes and processes in native Larrea tridentata {(D.C.) Cov} dominated communities along an urban–rural gradient in Phoenix, Arizona. Organic carbon (C), total nitrogen (N), and nitrate levels were significantly greater in the urban locations, but soil respiration rates (R_s) were higher at the rural sites. Urban sites exhibited no difference in R_s and N between the canopy and interplant patches while both the rural and suburban sites had significantly greater N and higher R_s under the canopy than in the interplant spaces. Soil respiration rates at the urban locations were not correlated with either soil moisture or temperature individually. These data suggest that urbanization has caused a disconnect of ecological pattern and processes in L. tridentata ecosystems within the urban setting such that water and N limitations no longer explain expected spatial R_s patterns, or elemental pools.