Hart and Risley's (1995) concept of a "word gap" (aka "language gap") is widely used to describe inferior cognitive development and lower academic achievement as by-products of the language patterns of families from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. In recent decades, this line of deficit research has proliferated and…

The author found through experimentation that a well-used metaphor can facilitate persuasion and attitude change. The author's hypothesis is that inclusion of similes will increase persuasiveness but that use of metaphors instead of similes would have a greater effect in attitude change. (MS)

Linguistic cues evoke prestructured beliefs in people's minds regarding the nature and causes of public problems. Political language can shape people's opinions and thereby shape events. There appear to be two beliefs or myths that people use to explain social problems: the first sees the sufferer as responsible for his own plight in a basically…

A comparison of the linguistic contexts of Scotland and Taiwan focuses on three aspects: (1) existence of two linguistic codes belonging to the same language family; (2) the status of one of those languages as the standard set by a larger, more powerful neighbor from whose perspective any other variety is likely to look like a dialect; and (3) the…