Background: Numerous studies show clear evidence that children display typicality effects during early word learning. However, little is known of the typicality of stimuli used by standardized language tests to assess children's language development. Aims: To examine the typicality of stimuli used by the Reynell Developmental Language Scales--III…

The interlanguage hypothesis stresses that errors are a normal part of the language learning process. At the same time, in the view of many, the teacher has a responsibility to provide short cuts for the learner through appropriate corrective feedback. Conventionally, this has been taken to imply correction of expression by requiring repetition of…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 23 titles deal with the following topics: sex appropriate and sex inappropriate language; lexical retrieval and perceptual errors; naming deficits in anomia and aphasia; developmental discourse; pragmatic information and…

This dissertation argues that the skill of using language to communicate should be based on the continuous development of the ability to use imagery, metaphor, and the inherently ambiguous nature of language. Since language is a symbolic restructuring of experience, any method designed to teach language arts must reflect the interplay between…

It is essential that language arts students in teacher education programs learn more than just facts about language, such as grammar, dialect, and so on. Future teachers must be taught how language, especially the child's language, affects the teacher, the child, and the child's achievement in school. These prospective teachers should learn what…

This volume contains fifteen essays focussing on the themes of (a) bilingual schooling and (b) the role and prospects of the Spanish language in the United States. Eleven of the essays are written in English, and the rest are in Spanish. The essays are: (1) "Rationale of Bilingual Education in the United States," (2) "Organization of the Bilingual…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 29 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) aspects of the organization of redundancy rules in the lexicon; (2) the adult role in early child language acquisition; (3) semantic categorization,…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 34 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) the influence of rhyming verses on young children's ability to repeat rhythmic phrases; (2) schools of thought in linguistics; (3) the great vowel shift in the…

Recently there has been an increasing interest in the development of children's impressions of stories, partially due to the work of theorists who have proposed formal grammars representing structural characteristics of stories. In order to learn more about children's narrative competence, stories they produced were analyzed in three experiments.…

This study looks at natural syntactic processes in the development of verbal mood in first- and second-language acquisition, language change in progress, history, and creolization. Correspondences are examined in the development of the subjunctive vs. the indicative mood. The study presents an integrative perspective, taking into account seemingly…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 27 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) instructional strategies in teaching synonyms, antonyms, classification, paraphrasing, and locating a main idea; (2) formal aspects of metaphor; (3) linguistic…

Videotape is much like audio tape in that it is magnetic tape on which a signal is electronically recorded, but it carries both an audio and a video signal. Video equipment demands a rather large initial expense but tape is relatively inexpensive. The magnifying, dynamic and synthesizing properties of this medium lend themselves to meeting some…

Examines evidence offered to support the idea of a sensitive period for second language acquisition. Findings indicate that there is insufficient evidence to accept the claim that mastery of a second language is determined wholly, or even primarily, by maturational factors. (34 references) (Author/CK)

The author describes a field-based program which integrates current theory of how elementary school children develop oral and written language processes with the role of the teacher as researcher, reflective practitioner, and effective planner. (MT)

Papers in English, French, and Portuguese address topics of creativity and its relationship to: native language instruction by television; conditions of language production at the moment of the emergence of creativity; comparison teaching; foreign language teachers; modern language instruction; psychological, pedagogical, and cultural…