Early research in sociolinguistics examined language and identity in terms of identity-marking—the representation of group identity through language, while recent research focuses on identity-making—the construction of individual identity through language. This coincides with the shift from modern society to post-modern society, as seen in various phenomena such as the acceptance of diverse ways of being and the advance of individuality. Implementing post-modern social theory, this paper, under the theme of language use and identity construction, considers how to incorporate “society” in linguistic studies. In particular, we discuss the connection between language and society in establishment of the indexicality of linguistic features and their use by speakers.

This paper examines the language use of an individual with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), focusing on her repetitive pattern of use in conversation. The diagnostic criteria for ASD have changed significantly in recent years. These recent changes in criteria have resulted in a wide range of individuals being diagnosed with ASD and their behaviours have also become more diverse, sometimes resulting in a failure to detect repetitive patterns of language behaviour. The paper examines an individual’s use of repetition in both lexicon and phonology during first meeting conversations with three other adults. The results of the study indicate that the individual frequently uses repetition to accentuate the metapragmatic aspect of poetic function to achieve mutual understanding with interlocutors. This suggests that we may be able to understand the repetitive language behaviour of people with ASD by examining their utterances from perspectives such as metapragmatic strategies.

This paper describes a cross-linguistic analysis of the Japanese origin loanwords (JOL) in eight Micronesian languages. Differences in the level of influence from the Japanese language among Micronesian languages and the factors contributing to such differences have been largely unknown since the literature on this topic has mainly focused on analyses of single language studies. This paper examines the influence of the Japanese language as well as the Japanese rule in Micronesia by evaluating social, historical, and linguistic factors contributing to the varying number of JOL in the different languages. The results suggest that the overall number of JOL is influenced by differences in the 1) intensity of contact with Japanese people, 2) cultural distance before contact, 3) orientation toward cultural assimilation, and 4) prestige gained from using Japanese language. Analyses of the number of JOL in several semantic categories also suggest that the cultural influence of the Japanese rule is clearly reflected in the number of JOL in each category.