Describes trends or issues that concern practicing English teachers, including (1) "Technical and Business Reports That Become Research Papers"; (2) "Students as Recipients, Not as Doers"; (3) "Linking Academics and Vocational Studies"; (4)"Inquiring Minds"; (5) "Lack of Student Instruction in…

Discusses the use of "there is" and "there are," and recommends notional agreement (agreement of a verb with its subject or of a pronoun with its antecedent in accordance with the notion of number rather than with the presence of an overt grammatical marker for that notion) as a useful approach to deciding which to use. (SR)

Discusses the use of "and" and "or" in technical writing. Suggests that the strict meanings of "and" and "or" are called for in technical writing much more than in ordinary prose. (SR)

Examines the consequences of the fact that human minds may know more than one language for the poverty-of-stimulus argument that speakers know more than they could have learned. The idea of multicompetence, the compound state of a mind with two grammars, is discussed. (22 references) (JL)

Responds positively to an earlier article that attempts to resolve the formalist-functionalist conflict in current linguistic theory. Concern is expressed, however, over the use of two terms, including genetic encoding and communication. (JL)

Suggests that not all linguists see the task of theory as relating meanings and sounds because placing meaning outside of language is to presuppose in one's description and explanation the very condition that languaging creates. If there is no meaning outside languaging, then languaging is not expressing, representing, or encoding anything, and…

Responds to a previous article on the conflict between formal and functionalist theories of language. Particular focus is on the endorsement that language is rooted in prior representational rather than communicative systems. (JL)

Responds to a previous article suggesting that the grammatical mode of communication arose via natural selection, concluding that such a theory of language is at best what a theory of language might be like if language had no linguistic consciousness. (JL)

In response to a previous article attempting to bridge the gap between formalist and functionalist theories of language, it is argued that the theory proposed compromises functional linguistics, which greatly lessons the value of such proposals. (JL)

Responding to the comments made by other linguists about a theory proposed on the origin of language, this paper refocuses on the issues presented in the first paper, namely the origins and evolution of language. (JL)

A century of debate over the reform of French spelling is criticized for focusing too much on dictionary issues and too little on grammar and clarity of expression. Four guidelines for the formulation of new spelling rules are suggested. (MSE)

Discusses Chomsky's linguistic theories and suggests that these theories have clear implications for politics, philosophy, and psychology. (five references) (JL)

Discusses how teachers can build upon childrens' natural sense of story, identify good books to serve as models of story elements and structure, and highlight the worth of an author's or illustrator's techniques of story craft as models for improved student writing. (SR)

The complexity of teaching comparisons in Southeast Asian second-language classes is described, and misleading presentations in many grammar and course books are cited. (LB)

The nominal imperative, which serves to give an order in nominal rather than verbal form (e.g., "Silence!") presents a little-studied case of alternation between presence and absence of determiner in a nominal syntagm. Analysis of a French language corpus allows development of hypotheses on the meaning of certain types of determiners, or…