Transcripts of 11 young children's speech to adults were found to include hints and question directives. (FL)

Describes a study of the use of the terms "will" and "gonna" in the speech of two three-year-old girls. The results suggest that one of the functions of "will" and "gonna" is to impart different causal relations to the two practices of "undertaking" and "planning." (HTH)

Presents results of a study indicating that constructive and dramatic play contexts affected language to the extent that children use more exophora in the constructive context and more linguistic verbs, third-person pronouns, and displaced reference tenses in the dramatic context. (HTH)

Suggests that even the youngest children use systematic strategies in ordering the elements of a story based on causal and temporal relationships. (FL)

Examined the conversations of preschool children as they completed two different tasks--a picture making task and a doll playing task. Concludes that the children's speech was primarily task-focused and that the rate of speech varied with task. (FL)

Describes a study to examine the changes that take place in the form and types of discussions about the past as two young, Spanish-speaking girls moved from elicited routines to spontaneous and novel conversations about their past experiences. (HTH)

Reports on a study indicating children's dependency in oral persuasion on the cooperative nature of dialog and nonverbal vocalizations and their dependence in written persuasion on persuasive strategies found in speech that can be transferred to writing and, concomitantly, their relatively infrequent use of persuasive strategies specific to…

Analyzes children's verbal disputes for the development of discourse markers "because,""so,""and,""but," and "well." Shows that the markers were primarily used to mark the exchange structure of discourse when they were first used by children two years seven months to three years six months and that the first markers to do so were "but" and…

Compares semantic uses of mental state words by children four and a half to five years old. Suggests that children's linguistic and cognitive capacities can be influenced a great deal by subtle situational factors and that the effects vary according to the child's cultural background. (AEW)

Concludes that by grade four children have mastered the basic intrasentential use of both "but" and "although." Adds that not even by grade eight do children display knowledge of the intersentential rule of focus governing adult use of these conjunctions. (FL)

Suggests that young children use their expectations of a context-specific, normal range of pause duration in timing the onset of a turn at speaking. (FL)

Reports the findings of a study designed to investigate children's deictic changes, use of speech act verbs, and preference for reporting system in their retold narratives. Claims that a linear age function emerged and that children's mastery of direct and indirect speech extends over many years. (HB)

Analyzes the referential strategies used in narrative discourse by 10 adults and 60 Japanese children aged 3 to 7 years. Determines the factors underlying choice of nominal versus elliptical forms. Discusses results in terms of cognitive, social, and linguistic factors underlying referential choice. (HB)

Reports the results of a study showing that one stylistic feature, the inclusion of connectives other than "and/then" is a good predictor of explanation in five- to ten-year-olds, but a straightforward lack of linguistic resources is not necessarily what limits older children's achievement of explanatory narrative. (HTH)

Suggests that children's use of social scripts for the production of sustained dialog in peer interaction depends on the nature of role play and that their attempts at script expansion are precursors to adults' recognition of the potential of conversation for self-expression. (FL)