Suggests activities for teaching elementary students about types of word-meaning changes. (JH)

Presents a variety of social contexts for verbal interaction between adult and child and between children. Discusses the variations in interaction caused by different contexts, as well as features that are consistent across contexts. (HTH)

Describes a program for introducing nonstandard speakers to standard English syntactic patterns that involves three steps: (1) introducing the new pattern, (2) providing practice, and (3) manipulating the new pattern. (JL)

The teacher of black students needs to develop a sensitivity to their rich communicative language styles in order to use the varied styles in the classroom situation. (JH)

The results of a study in which eight black kindergarten children responded to a set of structured tasks designed to elicit linguistic constructions which characterize Black English are presented and discussed in this Southwest Regional Laboratory (SWRL) technical note. Some of the children responded with a high rate of nonstandard realizations;…

Trade-off effects among linguistic components were compared in 30 elementary school children with deficits in both oral and written language, deficits only in written language, or normal language development. Analysis of syntax, phonology, and fluency indicated group effects, with trade-offs between some linguistic measures and positive…

The use of "have,""got,""have got," and alternate forms was investigated in the speech of Anglo and black grade-school children from lower and middle income neighborhoods in Los Angeles. Techniques were devised to elicit multiple occurrences of the construction, including questions and negatives. One technique used was a convergent communication…

Indicates a greater effect of hospitalization experience on children's general conception of hospital roles and plots than on specific linguistic markers of the sick-room register. Showed that girls performed better in the role of nurse and mother whereas boys performed relatively better in the role of doctor and father. (JD)

This examination of the frequency of occurrence of multiple meaning expressions in the oral speech of teachers found that such expressions as indirect requests, idioms, similes, metaphors, and irony were used in about 36 percent of all utterances by two different teachers at each grade level from K-eight. Implications for language-impaired…

This paper presents an analysis of teachers' classroom language as measured by the Teacher Language Instrument (TLI). Subjects were teachers in four programs of the Mt. Druitt Early Childhood Project for Year One level (6-year-old) children. The four programs were identified as "behaviorist,""cognitive,""competency,"…

This book traces the historical development of current attitudes toward language usage and, by examples and quotations, shows the steps in attitude change, including the creation and abandonment of rules. The book is based on the premise that standard English usage is open to different interpretations, and supports this premise with references to…

This study explored whether statistically significant differences exist between the (1) grammatical structures produced by high, average, and low black, inner-city elementary readers as measured by a language competency task; and (2) whether statistically significant interactions occur between reading achievement levels and the age of the child,…

This study examined patterns of interaction in conversations between native speakers (NSs) and nonnative speakers (NNSs) of English among 48 NS-NNS dyads of elementary school students in Australia. Results found that NSs used negotiation strategies and recasts to provide negative feedback to their NNS peers. Contains 57 references. (MDM)

Analyzes the oral language patterns of students from working class backgrounds, revealing a preference for practical efficiency of communication over grammatical correctness or precision. By school standards, their spoken narrations are confused, incoherent, and incorrect, leading to cultural misunderstandings, mutual incomprehension, and…

This study focused upon (1) whether the errors of sixth-grade children in spelling American English words were related to the dialect spoken by the children, and (2) what effect the teaching of phoneme-grapheme correspondence rules based upon a single dialect pattern would have on the spelling of second-grade children. First, eight sixth-grade…