Cluster formation in speech disfluencies of 15 preschool stuttering children and 15 nonstuttering controls was studied and compared. Clustering was found to be a significant factor in disfluent speech for both normal and stuttering children, but proportions of clustered disfluencies and size of clusters were significantly greater in the…

A summary on the state of the art of communication apprehension and reticence by two great adversaries. Concludes that empirical research has now matured to a point where it can spawn a practical technology. (PD)

Explores use of phrase 'taken for granted' including 'accept as true' and 'to fail to give subject's due.' Suggests latter usage has been noticed by few dictionary compilers, and EFL learners find it difficult to use and understand. (Author/BK)

Research was conducted among 70 Chinese speakers to measure the degrees of reciprocity, solidarity, and inequality in dyadic address exchanges. The results provided support for extending Brown's allegedly universal Invariant Norm of Address to Chinese usage. (Author/GC)

Speech-related reaction time measures and fluency-related measures of 24 adult stutterers and a like number of nonstutterers were assessed to determine their diagnostic discriminative power. Findings suggested that both fluency failures and the duration of laryngeal adjustment time are useful diagnostic measures for discriminating stutterers from…

Recounts examples of incorrect language usage involving redundancies, such as "revert back," and "in the modern world of today." (RS)

This study attempted to empirically demonstrate the validity of a twofold classification of speech disfluency in adult stutterers. Instrumentation and procedures permitting reliable identification and coding of 9 disfluency behaviors were developed and applied to monologues of 180 adult stutterers. Factor analyses supported the two-factor…

Analyzed attitudes of 617 New Zealand listeners toward a New Zealand English speaker and a Standard American English speaker. Speakers altered pitch and rate in their delivery. On balance, the impact of paralinguistic behaviors was greater than that of accent. (Author/SLD)

When survey respondents' answers include pauses, stammers, and hedges, does this indicate that they are in danger of misinterpreting the survey question? Or are disfluencies so common in ordinary discourse that they are nondiagnostic? We analyzed respondents' first utterances after survey questions in a corpus of 42 laboratory-based telephone…

Six Down's syndrome children (mean age 10 years) were observed in three settings: structured school, unstructured school, and home. Private speech utterances were recorded. Results showed that 13% of the utterances were private speech, with Ss varying from 11 to 53 utterances. Forty-nine percent of the utterances functioned as…

THE CHECKLIST WAS DESIGNED TO STUDY CHARACTERISTIC WORD USAGE IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST. THE STUDENT IS ASKED TO CIRCLE THE WORD IN A GROUP OF WORDS WHICH HE ORDINARILY USES TO DESIGNATE A SPECIFIC THING. FOR INSTANCE--SELF OVER FIREPLACE - MANTEL, MANTEL BOARD, MANTEL PIECE, SHELF, CHILDHOOD WORD FOR MOTHER - MA, MAMA, MOM, MOTHER, MOMMY. ONE…

In research on the historical present tense, neither interviews nor tape-recorded group sessions proved neutral or adequate. An explanation is found in the notion of a speech event, and simple techniques of participation are advocated. (Author/RM)