Among the papers presented at the 15th Annual Convention of the International Reading Association were the 16 included in this volume. The papers, all dealing with relationships between language and linguistics and reading, reflect both a wide range of opinion on the subject and considerable variety of focus. The six research reports are all…

Among the papers presented at the 15th Annual Convention of the International Reading Association were the 16 included in this volume. The papers, all dealing with relationships between language and linguistics and reading, reflect both a wide range of opinion on the subject and considerable variety of focus. The six research reports are all…

The syndrome of childhood autism is typified by major abnormalities in language development, yet there are few systematic descriptions of autistic children's linguistic systems. This paper represents the beginning of a comprehensive investigation of the language of verbal autistic children and concentrates on comparing the syntax used by ten…

This monograph reports a longitudinal study of the language development of 211 pupils as they progressed from kindergarten through twelfth grade. Data include transcribed interviews, written compositions, reading and IQ scores, listening scores and ratings, teachers' ratings on specified language factors, and reports of books read. Results…

Thirteen subjects (aged 5:6 to 6:6) with language disorders were given elicited imitation and spontaneous language tasks, and their performance was compared among and within subjects. The two procedures produced significantly correlated results for some children but not for others. Analysis of specific syntactic forms also produced variable…

Three studies assessing language comprehension of infants and toddlers through a method requiring a minimum of motor movement, no speech production, and differential visual fixation of two simultaneously presented video events provide insight into children's emerging linguistic capabilities and help resolve controversies about language production…

Argues that while many publishers may simplify the sentence structure in the basal reader to facilitate the process of learning to read, this practice may result in texts with stylistic features and text formats that are unnatural and uncharacteristic of written English or the language development level of the children. (FL)

This collection of papers is divided into four sections. Section 1, "Historical Linguistics," includes "The Grammaticalization of Non-Dative Reflexes of Latin ill- in Spanish" (Jose R. Carrasquel) and "'Esto es Ligero de Fazer': Object to Subject Raising in Medieval and Early Modern Spanish" (Mark Davies). Section 2, "Language Acquisition and…

It has been argued that the acquisition of the English article system is delayed for most second language (L2) learners until the very final stages of learning. This paper examines the difficulties of the acquisition of this system by Persian speakers. It suggests that no single available theory can account for the causes of the learners' errors,…

Examines how speakers and listeners make judgments on the relationship and truth of propositions connected by subordinating conjunctions. (EKN)

Study results indicated that there were no lasting differences in the English expressive syntactic skills of 57 junior kindergarten through third-grade English-speaking children enrolled in a French immersion program, relative to the English monolingual subjects who made up the normative data. (Author/CM)

Discusses the role of narration in the adapted verbal interactions between child and adult that help children acquire and master language, from birth on. Notes that, when a child attempts to retell stories read aloud, he or she can progressively master the kind of syntactically structured and decontextualized language necessary for access to…

Data from 34 British-born Chinese-English bilinguals are examined to elucidate patterns of first language (L1) development in a second language environment. Based on tape-recorded conversations and narrative data, analysis focuses on use of two Cantonese morphosyntactic features, classifiers, and quantifiers. Findings suggest despite a slight…

This study investigated the development of oral metalinguistic abilities in 140 children (ages 5-12) with oral language or reading impairments. The study focused on determining the difficulties that children with these different types of problems have at different ages in the elementary school years and determining how metalinguistic abilities…

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that children's use of Japanese case particles obeys the grammatical principles introduced at the earlier stage of language development. In previous studies concerning the acquisition of Japanese case examined through the experimental method, it has been suggested that children acquire the functional use…