This paper is a response to Lavandera's question regarding the limits of the study of language variation. Sociolinguistics is characterized by its desire to limit representational meaning much more narrowly than formal linguistics. In addition while formal linguistics views language as species-specific and designed to accomodate logical…

This assumption that non-standard speakers are limited in their linguistic ability is examined based on a larger study investigating the speech of working-class adolescents in Sydney, Australia's inner-city areas. Speech samples of four children are presented. An examination of verbal structures reveals that there is a predominance of simple…

Dissatisfied with the linguist's concentration on structure, sociolinguistically inclined linguists turned to anthropology to give an empirical orientation to linguistics. Almost at the same time anthropologists were trying to give a more theoretical orientation to their subject of study, and the structural methods was being sought as the remedy.…

A total of 224 subjects participated in a study to determine how children and adults comprehend logical connectives. Specifically, the study examined the effects of age, content, and practice on the encoding and combination of logical relationships expressed by six types of logical connectives: conjunction, disjunction, conditionality,…

Two major strategies for linguistically encoding an idea or proposition are suggested. The first strategy involves encoding an idea in the space of a single utterance, while the second strategy conveys the proposition through a sequence of two or more utterances. The tendency has been to focus on discourse as a composite of sentences (the first…

The express purpose of this presentation is with education and the technology of training strategies which relate to the conditions under which any two language systems are to be learned. It is assumed that Black English is structurally different from Standard English. It is concluded here that although the burden upon bilingual children is heavy,…

This handbook serves as an introduction to the study of children's language development and as a supplementary aid in the training of research workers in the field of children's language learning. As a teaching aid, it is suggested this work be used with a film entitled "Psycholinquistic Research Techniques: Children's Language." Major chapters…

This is a study of the kinds of processes involved in learning the meaning of individual lexical items, and in particular how the acquisition of lexical meaning is related to the cognitive structuring of events on the one hand and the ability to produce syntactic paraphrases of a word's meaning and other related constructions on the other. It is…

The general goals of this study of Luo children in Kenya were (1) to provide a description of the acquisition of language in terms of categories acquired within the age range of 12-35 months; (2) to account for their linguistic competence in the generation of their language; and (3) to illustrate how social settings alter the linguistic…

This report presents some of the findings of several years research on the relations between the non-standard English used by Negro speakers in various urban ghetto areas (NNE) and standard English (SE). The immediate subject is the status of the copula and auxiliary "be" in NNE. The approach to the problem combines the methods of…

Assuming that a child uses a "reduced version" of the adult phonological system, as opposed to an "imperfect" version, a phonological analysis of a five-year-old child's language is conducted. Research procedures are thoroughly described; tables and diagrams are included. (DD)

Examines the idea of a mismatch between grammaticality and acceptability. Evidence is used to refute the claim that ungrammatical but acceptable sentences are theoretically plausible in the case of the sentence, "A not unhappy person entered the room." (AMH)

Previous research has shown how macro-structures can affect children's verbalizations. This study focuses on whether conversational contexts of forms are learned along with syntax, on what makes syntax, and on how to predict speech. Transcripts of videotapes of young children provided a matrix of function or act against actual utterance, wherein…

This project seeking to develop sound methodological research techniques for second-language is based on an initial pilot study which (1) identified and classifies the utterances of a child learning Spanish as a second language, and (2) determines whether there are any significant trends in the observed order of learning of kernels and transformed…