Learning to read and spell involves learning about the written forms of words and how these are linked to language. Writing systems include formal patterns, which pertain to the appearance of written words, and functional patterns, which pertain to links between units of writing and units of language. We review the evidence that learners of a…

Children learning Chinese must cope with an opaque orthography lacking transparent relations between oral pronunciations and written characters: a challenge heightened for L2 learners. Use of digital Pinyin input may facilitate connections between oral and written language by allowing learners to access vocabulary they cannot yet write. We…

Students feel more comfortable in a new language when they understand its jokes. And when the jokes are puns, they build metalinguistic awareness. This article describes four categories of English puns--soundalike puns, lookalike puns, close-sounding puns, and texting puns--and suggests how they can be incorporated into English language…

Abstract is of a pivotal genre in scientific communication, assisting not only highly selective readers with judgment of the pertinent articles but also researchers in disseminating new knowledge and intellectual discoveries. Difficult yet challenging, however, is the task of writing effective abstracts particularly among non-English speaking…

Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, November 1971, Chicago, Illinois. (DD)

Results of a study involving an experimental and a control group of first-semester, college students in a required language course concern the use of the French dictee in the classroom as a testing and teaching technique. Performance on written and oral examinations indicates that dictation practice stimulates awareness of the written language,…

This book traces the historical development of current attitudes toward language usage and, by examples and quotations, shows the steps in attitude change, including the creation and abandonment of rules. The book is based on the premise that standard English usage is open to different interpretations, and supports this premise with references to…

AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA, TEACHERS USE INSTRUCTION IN LANGUAGE AS THE BASIS FOR INSTRUCTION IN COMPOSITION AND LITERATURE. FOLLOWING THE PRINCIPLES OF FRANCIS CHRISTENSEN, THE TEACHERS CONCENTRATE FIRST ON THE WRITING OF SENTENCES, THEN ON WRITING PARAGRAPHS. THE FINAL WRITING AND STUDY OF WHOLE THEMES ILLUSTRATE THAT THE DEVICES WHICH CONTROL…

THE EXTENT TO WHICH REDUNDANCY OF LANGUAGE AFFECTS THE DIFFICULTY OF LEARNING VERBAL MATERIALS FOR CHILDREN OF SEVERAL AGES WAS STUDIED. SAMPLES OF SPOKEN LANGUAGE APPROPRIATE TO CHILDREN OF FIRST, THIRD, AND FIFTH GRADES AND ADULTS (AS REPRESENTED BY JUNIOR COLLEGE STUDENTS) FROM SIMILAR SOCIOECONOMIC BACKGROUNDS WERE COLLECTED BY MEANS OF A TAPE…

The approaches of traditional grammar, descriptive linguistics, and generative grammar are largely complementary rather than exclusive. Traditional grammar defines eight parts of speech according to meaning or function and concerns itself almost wholely with the written language. Descriptive linguistics postulates that English has a set of unique…

This paper describes the past assumptions about the mismatch of child language and school language, noting the distance principle, the characteristics of language interference and the various treatments that have been hypothesized. Past research involving language mismatch and reading is reviewed, and it is noted that even though the best evidence…