Suggests that word bridges--across which meaning is communicated--become more intricate both as the individual's language develops and as the world around him changes and grows. (TO)

Neologism is a term for any word introduced into a language regardless of the method of its creation. (DD)

Provides evidence for developmental changes in the composition of the lexicon, reflecting a shift in emphasis from reference, to predication, to grammar. Findings show that the study of qualitative variation in lexical style is confounded by quantitative variation in rate of lexical development. Tables are appended. (Contains 42 references.) (JP)

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…

This article examines several major sociological characteristics of the Caribbean region in a study of pidginization and creolization. Three major conditions which may have affected the ways that Creole languages develop are discussed. They include: (1) the relative proportion of Africans, Europeans, and other groups now present in specific…

This article discusses how and when children acquire and master various speech styles, and specifically deals with the development of sex-specific speech as influenced by role expectations. (CLK)

A variety of informal language development assessment tools is presented for use with children with developmental disabilities. This book is written as a manual for clinicians and researchers for evaluating children who cannot meet the cognitive, perceptual, or motor requirements of standardized tests and to help evaluate aspects of language not…

The language of twins allows researchers in language development to examine acquisition in a unique environment. Researchers investigating the nature-nurture controversy, the order of acquisition, and other linguistic features find the twin situation particularly interesting because of the children's shared genetic makeup and environment. A…

Examination of the phonological acquisition of a young girl whose parents spoke two Cantonese dialects indicated that she acquired neither parents' dialect, supporting the claim that children use all available input in acquiring language rather than limiting themselves to a primary language model. (Author/CB)

For the linguist interested in typology and language universals, this paper suggests the usefulness of a taxonomy of copula and copula-like constructions in the world's languages and the elaboration of hypotheses of synchronic variation and diachronic change in this part of language. For the linguist interested in child language development, the…

Two experiments indicating that children's linguistic generalizational biases change from a semantically-based system to a syntactical-structural system provide evidence for a semantic-relational bias in children's early grammars and support the notion that children's generalizational biases shift from a semantic-relational basis to a…

Explores the role of computer-assisted activities in functional language learning. Suggests that computers appear to be a valuable tool for facilitating language use within the classroom. When used appropriately, computers can provide a genuine, real-world context for children's explorations through their journey to becoming competent literacy…

This study investigated the linguistic characteristics of speech addressed to the child and the features of the verbal environment critical for learning language. The study focused on the prosodic and paralinguistic features of adult speech to the young child. Adult speech directed to children was compared to other kinds of systematic speech…

This paper examines two studies on language development and narrative discourse structure by looking at how language shapes and is shaped by culture-specific experiences. Conversations between 20 middle-class Japanese preschoolers, aged 4-5 years old, and their mothers were analyzed to study differences in narrative elicitation by mothers towards…