Question development in English as a second language in four native Spanish-speaking children is described. The English questions initiated by four children differing in English proficiency (two limited English speaking and two fluent English speaking) were examined at two points in time to determine how question use changes in the syntactic,…

Although spoken language was the subject of attention among Soviet linguists for a short period in the 1920s, it has not attracted much attention since then. The main concern of Soviet linguists has been the forms of written language. Only at the end of the 1960s did linguists begin to record spontaneous speech on tape and study its forms. The…

This workbook in French grammar, intended for American college students, provides instruction and practice in French morphology, syntax, vocabulary, punctuation, and language style at the intermediate level. It is also designed to increase or reinforce the students' understanding of English grammar, based on the assumption that American students…

Examination of the nature and role of expectations in reading suggests that both a reading skills and a language skills component are necessary in a program of reading instruction for adult beginning students of English as a second language (ESL). ESL students have found reading exercises specifically designed to teach syntax, vocabulary, and…

A series of studies was conducted to explore three trends that have emerged from sentence combining research: (1) students with lower abilities in sentence combining and reading comprehension tend to register higher gains in both areas as a result of sentence combining instruction; (2) the broader the range of any student's sentence combining…

To determine whether reading and writing are as closely related as commonly supposed, a study estimated the amount of overlap that exists between several components of reading and writing knowledge. Data were obtained from 256 second graders and 251 fifth graders. Reading measures included tests of phonics (word knowledge), vocabulary (lexical…

Three dictionaries are compared for their usefulness to teachers of English as a foreign language, teachers in training, students, and other users of English as a foreign language. The issue of monolingual versus bilingual dictionary format is discussed, and a previous analysis of the two bilingual dictionaries is summarized. Pronunciation…

A study examined cognitive disorders and syntactical deficiencies in the inmate populations of federal penitentiaries in Canada. The focus of the study was on the relationship between language development and cognitive ability. During the study, a total of 240 inmates from prisons throughout Canada were given hour-long interviews in which they…

Twenty linguistic features found in essays of Creole-speaking students taking remedial writing courses at Hunter College are discussed and illustrated. The students spoke a creole or post-creole language as their mother tongue. The language varieties, which are those most frequently encountered in East Coast urban centers from Boston to Miami, are…

A study examined aspects of the acquisition of spatialized morphology and syntax in American Sign Language (ASL) learned natively by deaf children of deaf parents. Children aged 2 to 8 were shown story books to elicit narratives, and the resulting use of verbs contained morphological forms not appearing in adult grammar. Analysis of the creative…

A cross-linguistic comparison of syntax acquisition patterns examined preferential subject omission in the naturally-occurring speech of three Japanese toddlers from the Tokyo area and compared the findings to data on English acquisition. Results indicate that acquisition patterns of Japanese do not mirror those of English with regard to this…

A discussion of what functional linguistic research can offer teachers of composition and English is presented in this paper, which provides examples of different levels of analysis (phonology, morphology, and syntax) for the language of a variety of populations (including traditional freshmen, basic writers, English as a second language (ESL)…

Consisting of two separate papers, "Representational Issues in Systemic Functional Grammar," by Christian Matthiessen and "Systemic Grammar and Functional Unification Grammar," by Robert Kasper, this document deals with systemic aspects of natural language processing and linguistic theory and with computational applications of…

Perspectives of the field of psycholinguistics and second language research are examined to provide a broader understanding of language learning and language behavior. Psycholinguistics, which uses the approaches of psychology and linguistics is defined as the search for an understanding of how humans comprehend and produce language. Based on the…

Drawn from a conference that addressed the role of sentence combining in the teaching of writing, the papers in this collection are divided into three sections: the theory of sentence combining, research in sentence combining, and sentence combining in the classroom. The 22 papers discuss a variety of topics, including the following: (1) sentence…