Discusses several philosophies of linguistics and semiotics that debate the importance of words and their relationship to signs, language as the primary modeling system, and the historical primacy of verbal versus visual communication. Describes human communication as both language-based and nonverbal, both aspects inviting arbitrary and abstract…

Compares a group of adoptive couples (n=190 fathers and n=190 mothers) who increased their level of adoption openness from mediated to fully disclosed with a group who remained in mediated arrangements. Case studies illustrative of these findings and implications for professionals working with adoptive families are provided. (SR)

Suggests that, for young children, learning begins in conversation. States that children's speech activities in the classroom are a vital aspect of education and should not be limited to acts of speech with pre-determined ends. Argues that young children need to express their emotions and extend their sensibility, humanity, and identity in the…

This paper outlines the types of verbal interactions teachers engage in to challenge children's thinking and problem-solving during cooperative learning. The paper also provides examples of how children model many of the verbal interactions they have seen demonstrated in their discourse with each other. It appears that when teachers are explicit…

A multiple baseline design across three parent-child dyads of families with multiple risk factors was used to determine the effectiveness of teaching parents to use milieu language teaching procedures. Parents were taught to use two sets of milieu language teaching skills: responsive interaction and incidental teaching. Results showed that parents…

The purpose of this study was to provide descriptive information about low-income fathers' and mothers' talk to toddlers and to re-examine the bridge hypothesis (Gleason, 1975) in light of current changes in family structure and childcare responsibilities. Thirty-three father-child and mother-child dyads were videotaped during semi-structured free…

Whereas former research on academic discourse has paid a great deal of attention to writing and its hedging strategies, this paper aims to show that a complementary and equally important feature of academic spoken discourse is the use of modal certainty. An examination of modal selections in two American Dissertation Defenses additionally reveals…

How verbal information is processed and recalled appears to be influenced by the structure of the information presented (e.g., unrelated sentences vs. narratives) and the processes the listener uses to encode the information (e.g., verbatim encoding vs. gist extraction). Twenty adults, half with a history of learning disabilities (HLD) and half…

Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is an approach to language teaching which is claimed to help achieve excellence in learner performance. Yet there is little evidence of the impact that NLP techniques in teachers' discourse can have on learners. The article draws on workshops with teachers where classroom simulations were used to raise teachers'…

In Australia, Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom there has been a resurgence in attention directed at boys and schooling. The media and public discourse describes it as a burgeoning moral panic. Mainly grounded in public concerns about achievement levels and violence in schools, the response has been to develop quick fixes and…

The present study addresses the reactivity of two types of verbal protocols in SLA research. It expands on the work of Leow and Morgan-Short (2004), who found nonmetalinguistic verbalization during a second-language reading task to be nonreactive for beginning learners' text comprehension, intake, and production of the targeted morphological form.…

This study explores perceptions of control in victims of school bullying, by surveying 108 adolescents with questionnaires. The result shows that there are significant gender differences in external control in general, internal control of sociality, and victimization of physical bullying. Physical victimization decreases as subjects grow older,…

Shared book reading in families is strongly linked with successful school literacy and thus with identity, belonging and participation in literate societies. From an "emergent" perspective, literacy is recognised as beginning from birth. However, despite exceptions such as research into the UK program, "Bookstart", most…

The ways in which children learn a language--be it their mother tongue or their second language--can have a strong influence on their success in school. Researchers in linguistics and early child development have tried to determine the factors that can help and hinder language acquisition in young children, with some conflicting results. In this…

Like all teens, sexual minority youths (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) face many challenges, including student-on-student sexual orientation harassment. The authors examine recent research into the relative frequency, the potential impact, and school district responsibility to protect sexual minority youths from ongoing…