How do we talk about events we perceive? And how tight is the connection between linguistic and nonlinguistic representations of events? To address these questions, we experimentally compared motion descriptions produced by children and adults in two typologically distinct languages, Greek and English. Our findings confirm a well-known asymmetry…

Presents an "expose" of academic jargon that often confuses educators and other readers. The terms are humorously defined to reveal the money and status struggles that protect academics from "unhealthy preoccupation" with teaching and scholarship. (CJH)

Sociolinguistic analysis of the speech patterns in Spenser's "The Faerie Queen, Book VI" indicated that the socially different characters' language styles did not vary much among themselves or from the narrative, suggesting that the strict verse scheme requirements and a concern for unity of literary style leveled out speech particularities. (CB)

The history of "Verlan," a form of French word play involving inversion of syllables with varying degrees of complexity, is described and its phonological and morphological patterns are outlined. Appropriate and inappropriate contexts for use of Verlan, extralinguistic functions, and the results of lexicalization of verlanized words are…

It is proposed that the functions of the Mandarin verbal suffix "-le" are three: (1) for marking non-continual factual actions or events; (2) for indicating the "peak" in an event line; and (3) for explicitly marking anteriority of an action or event. Observations of written language drawn from newspaper articles and…

Examines the structures present in the writing samples of bilingual respondents to written questions in Spanish in order to determine which forms represent a departure from standard Spanish; discusses the patterns that develop; and offers insights into the factors underlying this systemic departure from standard written Spanish. (26 references)…

This brochure discusses, in lay terms, how languages change and how English in particular has gone through much alteration over the ages. It explains that languages change because: the needs of its speakers change; individual experience differs, and, therefore, the uses of language differ; new words are brought in from other languages or created…

Offers a historical view of the Latvian language to show ways in which different political realities have affected Latvian vocabulary; for instance, in terms of loan words, and ways in which Latvian perceptions of loans shed light on cross-cultural aspects of translation. Discusses strategies by which Latvian translators have tried to solve these…

The concept of journalistic norms and recent French experience with this are reviewed. It is concluded that the press might be a reasonable arbiter between conservative institutional norms and recent rapid change in the French language. (MSE)

This document presents some of the issues involved in deciding on a national language for the Philippines. It is noted that the Philippines needs a national language which would be accepted by most of the forty-five million Filipinos. If the trend continues for the next five years and if the trend in the Philippines to shift Pilipino (the national…

A series of computer programs and routines intended to assist researchers in the analysis of language usage--with a power comparable to statistical computer routines--was developed by the Southwest Regional Laboratory (SWRL). This document is one of a series that describes the design specifications for the individual modules which comprise the…

This paper presents an analysis of teachers' classroom language as measured by the Teacher Language Instrument (TLI). Subjects were teachers in four programs of the Mt. Druitt Early Childhood Project for Year One level (6-year-old) children. The four programs were identified as "behaviorist,""cognitive,""competency,"…

A series of computer programs and routines designed to assist researchers in the analysis of language usage was developed by the Southwest Regional Laboratory (SWRL). This document is one of a series that describes design specifications for the individual modules which comprise the Language Analysis Package (LAP). The Content Module functions as a…

Describes an assignment designed to dispel prospective English teachers' dichotomous ideas about language ("right" or "wrong"); gain a sense that more than one dialect could be accepted; and understand that the variations from the handbook rules ("errors") might even be rhetorically based. (TB)

Use of French television commercials as a pedagogical tool has a great advantage over "two-dimensional" advertisements because they provide authentic and current spoken language which is often reinforced by repetitions and musical tunes as well as visual slogans on the screen. (CB)