This dissertation examines the principles of two current theories of first language acquisition and from them synthesizes a second language methodology. As a background to the problem of second language methodology, it is stated that the basing of second language methodologies on first language learning is currently being questioned and that the…

This work proposes to show that second language acquisition can take place when adults surround themselves with a target language and have ample opportunity to participate in its use. The hypothesis tested is that methods and strategies utilized in the acquisition of a second language for adults should be essentially the same as those manifested…

This thesis clarifies the role of the applied linguist in the language and language teaching sciences with particular application to advanced language learning that takes place after five years of study. Students' deficiencies identified at matriculation together with the psychological and practical needs of the students and their society identify…

This study investigated the linguistic characteristics of speech addressed to the child and the features of the verbal environment critical for learning language. The study focused on the prosodic and paralinguistic features of adult speech to the young child. Adult speech directed to children was compared to other kinds of systematic speech…

This paper investigates the development of negative Wh-questions in a four year old subject acquiring English as her L1. Spontaneous and elicited speech samples were collected over a period of 6 months. During the course of the study, the subject began to invert subject and auxiliary, and by the end of the study she was inverting correctly in 38%…

This study addressed four questions raised in syntactic acquisition studies conducted by Carol Chomsky and others. Specifically, questions concerned the nature of syntactic structures in children's language repertoires, the uniformity and rate of acquisition of particular structures, the generalizability of the minimal-distance principle, and the…

In speaking a child sometimes makes constructions in which a sequence of separate utterances expresses a semantic relation not expressed by either utterance. These "vertical constructions" are the main point of this study. Previous studies of construction in child language have largely dealt with sentences. In this study, sentences are…

Gestural behavior between mothers and young children was hypothesized to be important in the acquisition of communicative competence. It was presumed that a typology of gestural function could assess non-verbal behavior. Data consisted of sound film samples of feeding and bathing events of three subject pairs. Initially the children ranged in age…

Twenty-five Spanish-speaking English as a Second Language (ESL) students in a California high school were the subjects of a study to determine the effectiveness of an audiovisual as opposed to an audiolingual method. After pretesting, to ensure that the subjects had approximately the same proficiency level, the students were divided into a control…

The following award-winning dissertations in bilingual education are included here: (1) "The 1974 Bilingual Education Amendments: Revolution, Reaction, or Reform" by Susan Gilbert Schneider; (2) "(Memory Organization, Bilingualism, and Interlingual Interference: A Comparative Analysis of the Semantic Distance and Semantic Judgment…

This study was designed to identify specific language variables that could prove to be useful as predictors of a child's success in beginning reading. The study is theoretical in nature and provides background information that may be useful in future empirical investigations. A review of the literature on child language acquisition was conducted.…

The studies reported here constitute part of a project on language development and social influence. The question of what to do to obtain a linguistic development that is not retarded by an unfavorable environment is discussed, relative to different value systems. In the first three chapters a theoretical background is given in which…

Some psychologically salient meaning properties of lexical items were isolated using judgments about the similarity of meaning within three sets of words: verbs of judging, hypothetical verbs, and locative prepositions. Subjects were asked to rate the similarity of meaning of all possible pairs of words from one of the three domains on a 1-9…

This paper brings together modern linguistic theory (particularly transformational-Generative analysis), psycholinguistic research, and educational objectives underlying the teaching of language in order to develop a methodology compatible with the philosophy of "the New English." Based on the premise that at its best, the New English is…

The primary purpose of this study was to determine if there were significant relationships between the 12 subtest scores of the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities (ITPA) and the seven scores of the verbal and figural tests of the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT). The subjects were a stratified random sample of 40 second grade…