This study adopted Ambridge's research paradigm to examine the effects of entrenchment, preemption, and verb semantics in second language (L2) acquisition of English "un-" prefixation. Three groups of Chinese learners of English (second- and fourth-year English majors and teachers of English) rated the acceptability of 48 "un-"…

Based on Adaptation Theory, the article analyzes the production process of hedges. The procedure consists of the continuous making of choices in linguistic forms and communicative strategies. These choices are made just for adaptation to the contextual correlates. Besides, the adaptation process is dynamic, intentional and bidirectional.

The author gives reasons as to why a child's speech may seem to deteriorate after a change of schools, Speech is infinitely adaptive; and the child learns early how to use different styles for different situations. The child, however, may not be aware of this ability. (Author/MS)

In dealing with the differences between the school and non-school language of Black children, the author uses a contingency grammar," which considers all speakers of a language to have the identical linguistics competence but includes a level of systematic performance" to account for dialectal and other systematic differences. (FB)

Defines lexical diversity as manifest vocabulary range and lexical density as the ratio of lexical to gramatical items in a unit of discourse. Examines the effects of lexical diversity and density on listeners' evaluative judgments. (MH)

Teachers can help students increase their range of registers by being aware of and encouraging their students' linguistic efforts and encouraging students' control over literate" forms. (Author/JB)

A system of 20 Fortran and PL/1 programs, developed for an analysis of aphasic and normal speech transcripts, is described in detail. The programs aid in lexical, grammatical, paralinguistic and statistical analyses, as well as in data preparation and correction. They can also be used in schizophrenic and other kinds of pathological language and…

The use of the term "strategy" in second language communication is discussed, and a typology of communication strategies is presented. Communication strategies are those systematic devices a second language learner uses in attempting to express precise meaning in the target language. Definitions of learning strategies and communication strategies…

The writer introduces the idea of sociolinguistic competence, the ability of a speaker to produce and recognize an infinite number of inter-idiolectal code switches, and discusses two methods of dealing with such language variations: frequency analysis and implicational analysis. In frequency analysis, the method used by sociolinguists such as…

Notes that it is not surprising to find a time lag between the development of a field, in this case socio-linguistics, and the application of its concepts and methodologies to a specific setting, the classroom. (Author)

A data-based study done in Philadelphia examined the constraints on relative pronoun deletion and looked for a possible correlation to social stratification or stylistic variation. Restrictive relative clauses only are examined. Constraints appear to be due to performance factors related to sentence processing. (SCC)

This paper considers the existing evidence of systems of co-occurring, sex-linked, linguistic signals in the United States. In the first section, the type of research which has been done in linguistic sex contrasts and then the relevant material in "folk linguistics" are discussed. In addition, a number of studies about the differences among men…

This collection of studies is divided into four parts. Part one is concerned with aspects of maternal communication as it relates to regulative and instructional contexts. Part two focuses on aspects of the speech of five year olds, with Hawkins examining choices within the nominal group, Turner and Pickvance examining expressions of uncertainty…

An approach to written composition built upon knowledge of the linguistic environments of inner-city blacks is described.

Registers--language varieties set apart from other varieties by the social circumstances of their use--are linguistic universals operating in all speech communities. Ghetto black children learn to control registers pertinent to the domain of family and neighborhood--most of which are spoken in their vernacular. Ghetto children are also expected to…