In this squib we examine the time course of children's acquisition of English to evaluate the basic insights of Kayne's (1981; 1984) proposals on preposition stranding. Kayne argued that the availability of preposition stranding (P-stranding) in English is parametrically linked to the availability of double object datives and the prepositional…

This article focuses on the development of vocabulary among English language learners. The author first defines what a "word" means, then discusses five aspects of vocabulary knowledge. Drawing on Swain (1993), the author identifies three main goals of vocabulary learning. The rest of the article is devoted to the description of six…

The article summarized findings on the oral output of 40 gifted elementary school children who voluntarily attended language workshop sessions. Students were offered a wide range of oral expression, yet they exhibited haphazard and inconsistent oral abilities. Recommendations are made to improve the linguistic abilities of gifted children. (CL)

Examines several aspects of functional load in English that may be relevant for assessing the relative importance of segmental features of learners' speech. Implications for the use of functional load in pronunciation drill books are discussed. (Author/CB)

Reprints an article originally published in 1932. Discusses the development of S. Leonard's book "Current English Usage." Suggests that the monograph stands as a symbol of a spirit and attitude in the teaching of English which will have far-reaching influence in determining the course of study and content of English instruction in the future. (RS)

Diction in choral music simultaneously functions as a vehicle for both the musical medium and the textual message. Nearly every choral methods and choral conducting book written in this century includes some references to and instructions for the practice of choral diction. Most of these methods, however, are not based on any sort of systematic…

Analyzes two descriptions of Nigerian English and discusses their implications for ESL teachers in Nigeria. (EKN)

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…

Describes a computer-based connectionist-type network model that correctly identified the gender of a set of French nouns, relying solely on information inherent in the nouns' structures, in the absence of explicit rules for evaluating nouns, through discovering criterial gender-specific features through examples of masculine and feminine nouns.…

Writing verse is a learning experience. Arranging words, sounds and syllables can turn everyday language into metered language (language that can be measured), and metered language is the definition of verse. This article discusses the use of meter in helping students establish sets of syllables and lines that can be counted, enabling them to…

The dominant viewpoint regarding phonologically driven speech errors is that segments are the units responsible behind the errors. The goal of this paper is to illustrate the point that other potential candidates for explaining these speech errors, which have gone largely unnoticed, provide a better explanatory framework for speech errors than do…

There is no question that English, and especially American English, enjoys high prestige among German speakers. This popularity resulted in a growing importation of English loans into German. The influence is decidedly asymmetrical. In this article, the author discusses the English language's influence on German, covering: (1) a brief history of…

In Sundanese, a western Austronesian language, speech levels allow the speaker to establish social identity through talk alone, using multiple linguistic forms with very different pragmatic meanings. These words are deference and demeanor indexicals, as in the French formal versus informal second person. It is argued that although they do exist,…

Describes the growth of Seeing Essential English (SEE) and suggests that the use of SEE in several school districts is responsible for students' high scores on two tests of English understanding. Advises further research to gauge the contribution of SEE. (EKN)