Infant bilingualism can be defined as a child being exposed to two or more languages from birth. Because of the dearth of first-hand research on the effect of a bilingual environment on a child's speaking patterns, parents from multilingual backgrounds raised their daughter in a bilingual environment, German and Spanish, in England. They speak to…

This dissertation is an attempt to characterize the notion "exception to a rule of grammar" within the context of Chomsky's conception of grammar as given in "Aspects of the Theory of Syntax." This notion depends on a prior notion of "rule government"--in each phrase marker on which a transformational rule may…

Previous research has shown how macro-structures can affect children's verbalizations. This study focuses on whether conversational contexts of forms are learned along with syntax, on what makes syntax, and on how to predict speech. Transcripts of videotapes of young children provided a matrix of function or act against actual utterance, wherein…

Sixty-five grade 5-6 children were tested on a verbal recall task involving material of varying semantic and syntactic content. There was no difference between best and poorest readers in their performance on random lists of words, but there were clear differences on meaningful sentences and on syntactically well-formed but semantically anomalous…

Four tests--PPVT, ITPA, MRT, WPPSI--commonly used to measure language development in young children are evaluated by four criteria: (1) what development aspects do they claim to tap; (2) what do they actually tap; (3) what linguistic knowledge is presupposed; (4) what special problems face a non-standard English speaker. These tests are considered…

This publication reviews significant research in 1969 in the field of oral language in early childhood and reading. In general the paper discusses only those areas where these three topics intersect; thus detailed treatment is given only to language in early childhood education and language in relation to reading. Initial comments deal with…

"How does a child come to be able to relate his own experience to the formal means of communicating about that experience in the language to which he is exposed?" The author maintains that the innate predispositions that underlie the development of the cognitive ability to organize and structure experience also underlie the acquisition of the…

Some insight into the relationship between language and thought can be achieved through a comparison between American Sign Language and English. This paper discusses several studies on this topic and defines some of the problems. The author feels that the deaf using American Sign Language cannot be considered linguistically deficient. A structural…

Three discourse-related formal aspects of model-imitation pairs were analyzed longitudinally in successive samples from two Hungarian children. Results revealed an unbroken developmental trend leading to lexically coherent conversational replies and that imitation aided the children in learning the lexicon, making phonological approximations of…

Provides annotations of research studies in the areas of language, literature and media study, writing, and English teacher education. (HOD)

Investigates early literacy acquisition in Turkish with its phonologically transparent orthography and regular letter-sound correspondences. Findings reveal that such orthography fosters the early development of word recognition skills and that phonological awareness contributes to word recognition in the early stages of reading acquisition. (33…

Papers from the proceedings are: "Cultural Universals in the Acquisition of Language;""The Acquisition of Locative Constructions in Cantonese Children"; "The Acquisition of VOT: Is It Language-Dependent?"; "Flexibility in Semantic Representations: Children's Ability To Switch among Different Interpretations of 'Big' and 'Little'"; "Multifunctional…

This research study focuses on two interrelated aspects of the development of bilingualism, the development of awareness of two separate linguistic systems and the occurence of interference phenomena. The research was conducted in a small town in East Central Illinois. The sample for the study included all the Mexican-American children enrolled in…

That semantics interacts with syntax has been shown in psycholinguistic investigations of the processing of language by adults and of the acquisition of language by children. The few programs for language assessment and therapy that have attempted to incorporate semantic considerations have included some misunderstandings of the psycholinguistic…

The syntax module of the language development curriculum portion of the Early Childhood-Special Education Teacher Preparation Program at the University of Virginia includes the following areas: (1) various aspects of syntax development as background for an outline of the ontogeny of syntax development in children 18-106 months of age; (2) syntax…