Search

Northern Andean Spanish (NAS) possesses a complex system of structures used in impositive speech. NAS speakers choose from several grammatical possibilities when asking their interlocutor to act. This article summarizes the grammatical possibilities and explains how the different forms are used to indicate different levels of politeness. (15 references) (Author/CK)

This publication presents portraits of nine teachers from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, Jordan, Myanmar, New Zealand, Senegal, and Trinidad and Tobago who are opening up young minds and nurturing their potential. The portraits describe how these teachers created an educational situation in which students could thrive and grow. Some of the creative efforts included: intensive reading and writing projects; a health and hygiene course; a training center in business and waste recycling; a study of rock and roll music that led to the study of folk musicians, authors of the artistic freedom movement, and philosophers; training in inquiry and reasoning; interactive teaching; native language immersion; role playing in future vocations; and student exchange programs. (SM)

The pragmatic expressions of Argentine Spanish (e.g., "bueno, viste, no? mira") are defined as deictic signals. They are deictic because they indicate elements of the communicative situation: transitions between text segments, conversational roles, or the social relationship between participants. They also signal contextual suppositions and help the hearer derive specific inferences. The basic simultaneous localizing and signalling functions on discursive and interactional planes are illustrated with "che." This expression is shown to act at three planes of text organization: the ideational (e.g., marking a topic change), sequential structure, and speech act planes. In turn-initial position, it is used to get the turn at talk and to define the hearer as addressee. It is normally a mark of intimacy or solidarity, but can evoke familiarity simply to reinforce an authoritarian tone when there is a marked asymmetrical relationship between participants. "Che" is also applied to indicate a change of time frame: specifically, a return to an activity that has been temporarily interrupted. Contains 19 references. (Author)

English and Basque versions of this booklet present information on Euskal Herria, the Basque Country that straddles the Franco-Spanish border. "Euskal Herria" designates both land and people: "the Basque speech community." The area, which constitutes the ancient Kingdom of Navarre, represents the unbroken presence of Basque people on the European continent over thousands of years, longer than the Indo-European peoples. This richly illustrated booklet covers the following: current geographic and demographic information; historical, religious, and cultural contributions of Basque people in the area and as emigrants; the Basque language; territorial changes, geolinguistic history, and institutional uncertainties; the first literary works in the 16th and 17th centuries; literature and the consolidation of the written language; social acts for and against the Basque language in the 17th and 18th centuries; cultural resistance during Franco's dictatorship; the new political era since 1976, in which the Basque language has "the character of official language in the Basque-speaking areas of Navarre" and laws regarding language use have been adopted; and the development of instruments such as dictionaries and grammars to enable the modernization of the language. (LB)