Analysis of speech samples from British female adults (N=8) revealed that the subjects increased vocal pitch when addressing young children, but not as much as previously studied North American subjects did. Pitch increases were more commonly observed in free speech than in reading-aloud conditions. (23 references) (Author/CB)

American Italian exhibits interference from English in loanwords, loanblends, loanshift extensions and loan translations, and some of these are analyzed in this paper. (CK)

A study of the extent to which the sequence-of-tenses rule (STR) is used in television news reporting in the United States is presented. The study examines which tenses are shifted most frequently and explains the uses and functions of tense variation. It is argued that STR is not always a semantically and pragmatically unmarked form as proposed…

Discusses a quantitative study of the use of Australian Questioning Intonation (AQI) in Sydney, which reveals that it has the social distribution characteristic of a language change in progress. The social motivations of AQI are examined in terms of local identity and the entry of new ethnic groups into the community. (Author/SED)

THIS STUDY OF LANGUAGE PRESENTS A SPECIFIC, SYSTEMATIC DESCRIPTION OF THE WAYS IN WHICH A SPEAKER ADJUSTS HIS MANNER OF SPEAKING ACCORDING TO THE CONTEXT IN WHICH HE EMPLOYS LANGUAGE. FOUR USAGE-SCALES OF "NATIVE CENTRAL ENGLISH" ARE INTRODUCED--AGE, BREADTH, RESPONSIBILITY, AND STYLE. A KNOWLEDGE OF THESE FOUR DIMENSIONS HOPEFULLY WILL OVERCOME…

Spectrographic analysis of two lectures given without notes by Simone de Beauvoir and Margaret Mead allow detailed specification of three forms of intonation characteristic of declarative sentences in English and French. Discussion of the objectives, of analysis procedures, and of results of the study which elaborate on intonational differences…

This paper examines the speech performance characteristic of the college lecturer. One of the most organized forms of speech performance, the lecture functions as a referential monologue and has a necessarily topical focus. Specifically dealt with are the ways in which lecturers introduce new topics, link together topical utterances, and close out…

A detailed, spectrographic analysis of two lectures, given by Diego Rivera and Margaret Mead, which were chosen for their realistic naturalness, permits a graphic presentation and description of the patterns of three types of intonation within the declarative sentence in Spanish and American English. They include a minor continuation (A), major…

The reduction of existing lexical items to shorter forms has generally been discussed under the headings of "acronyms,""back-formations," and "clippings." Two kinds of acronym are found, the letter-naming type (e.g. FBI, YMCA) and the letter-sounding type (e.g. UNESCO, CARE). The latter type must be pronounceable within the phonotactic norms of…

A STUDY WAS DESIGNED TO EXAMINE THE LINGUISTICS STRUCTURE OF SECOND- AND FIFTH-GRADE TEACHERS' CLASSROOM LANGUAGE USING PROCEDURES THAT HAVE BEEN APPLIED IN RECENT STUDIES OF CHILDREN'S LANGUAGE (LOBAN, 1963 "THE LANGUAGE OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CHILDREN" ED 001 875). TEN SECOND-GRADE AND 11 FIFTH-GRADE TEACHERS IN A LARGE, SUBURBAN, PUBLIC SCHOOL…

A review of the literature on Black English was made to determine what information is available and to assess the credibility of the information. The review covered the years from 1865 through the first half of 1975. More than 75 documents were identified as potentially informative in the area of investigation. The linguistic features of Black…

Formality as a style may be defined as language which reflects or "keynotes" the degree of familiarity between participants in a discourse. Working from this assumption, this paper attempts to answer the question, "How is formality best described?" Results of a series of tests indicate that informants' labels (with the…

Two studies examined conversations between mothers and children from three different groups to determine culturally preferred narrative elicitation patterns: (1) Japanese-speaking mother-child pairs living in Japan; (2) Japanese-speaking mother-child pairs living in the United States; and (3) English-speaking Canadian mother-child pairs.…

The casual conversation of six pairs of Japanese and six pairs of American colleges students was analyzed for evidence of two related aspects of conversation management: the linguistic characteristics of utterance units and back-channel strategies. Utterance units are defined as those occurring between identifiable pauses or breaks in tempo.…

This transcription of radio conversations on the English language between Albert H. Marckwardt and Randolph Quirk, jointly produced by The British Broadcasting Corporation and The Voice of America, indicates that American and British English have never been so different as people have imagined and that the dominant tendency has been toward…