Describes adjustments in speech patterns made by two- and three-year-olds when talking to their 14-month-old siblings and compares these changes with those made by mothers addressing their babies. Individual differences between the children indicate two types of influence on the adjustments made--pragmatic and emotional. (EKN)

Discusses the modifications in the direction of simplified and more linear language (American Sign Language) used by deaf mothers with their deaf children. (EKN)

Excoriates those who resist attempts to remove sexism from English, singling out critic John Simon as particularly offensive. (JL)

Tests the hypothesis that mothers would label objects with adult-basic level terms when talking to other adults, but would label the same objects with child-basic terms when speaking to their young children who were just starting to talk, even though these labels may be very much "incorrect" by adult standards. (Author/RH)

Discusses the ellipsis of major sentential elements as a pervasive grammatical phenomenon in Japanese conversation and demonstrates its relevance for current theories of discourse or text analysis. (FL)

Presents a historical analysis of the Chinese in Cuba and examines the influence of the Chinese language on Spanish. Examples are given of Chinese words used in Cuba today and it is concluded that they have made a considerable contribution to Cuban Spanish. (NCR)

Cree has a grammatical distinction that differs from the Western concept that is relevant for the selection of nominal and verbal endings between animate and inanimate nouns. Examples illustrate how the Cree distinction cuts across animate/inanimate boundaries. (PMJ)

This article discusses the role of phonetics in second language teaching, and stresses the importance of considering the whole speech event in adapting phonetics to instruction. (Text is in French.) (CLK)

Investigates how numbers function rhetorically by influencing persuasive appeals, the structure of messages, and the use of language. Argues that "three" is the dominant numerical motif in the English language. Asserts that, as long as numbers influence the speech, behaviors, and perceptions of people, their rhetorical significance must…

What errors in English subject-to-verb agreement reveal about the syntactic nature of sentence subjects was investigated. Participants in 3 experiments included 104 undergraduates and 64 members of a university community. Results suggest the abstract syntactic relation of subject controls/mediates verb agreement, not notional properties and…

Offers a historical view of the Latvian language to show ways in which different political realities have affected Latvian vocabulary; for instance, in terms of loan words, and ways in which Latvian perceptions of loans shed light on cross-cultural aspects of translation. Discusses strategies by which Latvian translators have tried to solve these…

Describes and categorizes patterns we construct between texts of different kinds (patterns of intertextuality). Whether the principles of intertextuality can be applied to other sorts of semiotic "texts" such as computer graphics and hypermedia is raised as a crucial question for the future of educational research. (Contains 48…

The development of language conditions in Helsinki, including its origins in a Swedish-speaking area, makes it possible to observe many processes of sociolinguistic interest. Helsinki's colloquial Finnish has served as a model for the evolution of colloquial Finnish throughout the country. (Contains eight references.) (Author/LB)

Finds in the "Lettres" (1895-98) of Marichette (a Franco-Acadian woman) graphic evidence of the effects of language contact with the socially and economically dominant English on her Franco-Acadian dialect. Explores her penchant for code-switching and relates this aspect of the writer's style to her political commentary. (SR)