The sociolinguistic development of Yiddish: Eighteenth to the twentieth centuries

Books reviewed in this article:
Estraikh, Gennady Soviet Yiddish: Language Planning and Linguistic Development
Kerler, Dov-Ber The Origins of Modern Literary Yiddish
Peltz, Rakhmiel From Immigrant to Ethnic Culture: American Yiddish in South Philadelphia     

VIRTUAL COMMUNITY CARE? SOCIAL POLICY AND THE EMERGENCE OF COMPUTER MEDIATED SOCIAL SUPPORT

This article argues that the emergence and growth of internet use in Britain has important implications for the analysis of social policy. It attempts to outline a research agenda for social policy in relation to one particular aspect of internet use, that of on-line self-help and social support - what we term here virtual-community care . The article presents data on patterns of home based internet use in Britain and outlines some contemporary debates in social policy about the importance of self-help and social support. It also considers how the internet is being used for self-help and social support with a particular emphasis on the emerging situation in Britain. Three illustrations of on-line self-help and social support are presented: two from newsgroups, which are part of the 'uk.people.* hierarchy': one concerned with disability and one with parenting issues; and one web based forum concerned with issues surrounding mortgage repossession. Drawing upon this illustrative material the article discusses some emergent issues for contemporary social policy discourse: the rise of self-help groups; the privileging of lay knowledge and experience over the 'expert' knowledge of health and welfare professionals; the nature of professional-client relationships; the quality and legitimacy of advice, information and support; dis/empowerment; and social exclusion.     

Reflections on scholarship and linguistic rights: A rejoinder to Jan Blommaert

The attachment that many peoples have to their language is clear from the fact that it often becomes a symbol of their very existence (see, e.g. Fishman 1997). This is what makes this field interdisciplinary and vital for human rights but difficult to limit to traditional empirical research. There are elements of identity, access issues, and questions of ownership. (Michael Clyne, personal communication)     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed
Romaine, Suzanne. Communicating Gender
Chouliaraki, Lilie and Fairclough, Norman. Discourse in Late Modernity: Rethinking Critical Discourse Analysis
Fishman, Joshua A. (ed.). Handbook of Language and Ethnic Identity
Kontra, Miklo´s; Phillipson, Robert; Skutnabb-Kangas, Tove and Va´rady, Tibor (eds.). Language: A Right and a Resource. Approaches to Linguistic Human Rights
Foulkes, Paul and Docherty, Gerard (eds.). Urban Voices. Accent Studies in the British Isles
Baron, Naomi S. Alphabet to Email: How Written English Evolved and Where It's Heading     

Risk news in the world of Internet newsgroups

The coming of the Internet has provided those who are able to benefit from it new ways of giving and seeking information. These new contexts of communication include newsgroups , very much a text-based form of interaction with little visual enhancement. In the new era of 'risk society' (Beck 1992) people make use of newsgroups to talk about the risks which now confront the world, in their pursuit of trustworthy information and informants. Using the affair of Mad Cow Disease (BSE), with particular reference to the crisis in 1996, this article explores the dynamics of news exchange via the newsgroups as a process which is Interactive, International, Interested and Intertextual. These characteristics result in a form of discourse through which participants engage in the interpersonal social construction of risk. The credibility of the proposition that BSE poses a health risk to humans is the focus of their discussions: they are concerned with the nature of the evidence for that proposition and with the reliability of the sources responsible for endorsing it.