In this report, previous studies are reviewed in order to reconsider the assumption that lower class black children are generally deficient in their ability to produce syntactically elaborated speech. Though several studies have seemed to confirm the elaboration-deficiency hypothesis, the evidence presented is not convincing. Specific critiques of…

A Computer-Assisted Language Analysis System (CALAS) was developed as a syntactic and semantic analyzer of machine readable text in English. CALAS includes a set of computer programs, an algorithm for implementation, and human editors who assist the computer and its programmer in the processing of data. Data analysis is accomplished in three…

Examination of the development of form/function relations of the prepositions "por" and "para" at different levels of proficiency in the interlanguage of study-abroad students in Granada, Spain, revealed "noncanonical" as well as "canonical" uses of these prepositions. The most common noncanonical uses were…

Examines what linguistic devices speakers use to make an entity salient in a discourse and how they re-refer to discourse entities moving in and out of focus. Speakers' center of attention was manipulated via a videotaped basketball game. Speakers referred to prominent entities as subjects; when they referred to them as objects, they repeated the…

Examines the lexical and syntactic choices made by men and women in 29 separate hour-long interactions within 29 groups, each consisting of 2 men and 2 women. Data analysis reveals that, although women use intensifiers more than men and men use more hedges, their overall language use does not reflect any difference in social power. (42 references)…