A discussion of nonstandard varieties of English implies a standard variety. What "standard" English actually is should be defined in order to approach it in the classroom. C.C. Fries described it as the variety used by those who hold positions of trust and respect and conduct the important affairs of a community. This definition admits that what…

These tape scripts accompany tapes on Spanish grammatical structures for Level 1. The contents include presentation and practice on articles, adjectives, adverbs, simple negative, regular and irregular verbs, pronouns, and the complimentary infinitive. Each script is prefaced with syllabus number and topic and the vocabulary to be introduced or…

An experiment is described for determining the vocabulary and grammar of user retrieval requests in natural English as a guide in the design of a language for man-machine communication through a typewriter console. This experiment tested written dialog in follow-up to an experiment that tested oral dialog. Subjects repeated behavior observed in…

An experiment is described for determining the vocabulary and grammar of user retrieval requests in natural English as a guide in the design of a language for man-machine communication through a typewriter console. Results of ten question-answer dialogs are discussed. In oral communication, initial requests were most frequently declarative and…

In order to move away from the prescriptive methods of teaching English that only make students more self-conscious and reticent in their language use, teachers should introduce word games, relevant issues, and exciting strategies to instill in their students the love of language. This article presents five exercises developed to encourage…

Distinction is made between nonsignificant (i.e. definitional or accidental) and significant universals. Two approaches to discovering the significance of universals are characterized and evaluated: the process-state approach, which aims at "transmission-significant" universals, and the transformationalist approach, which seeks for…

This paper describes Leondard Bloomfield's contributions to the description and instruction of German. Bloomfield's approach is reflected in this textbook "First German Book" which appeared in 1923 and was revised in 1928. The organization and structure of the text are described here in detail, and the differences between the first and…

This theoretical paper discusses (1) the meaning of the concept of structure, how the concept of structure is used by psychologists, and how the concept can be defined, and (2) the role of the concept "structure" in cognitive development with specific reference to Piaget's vision of intellectual development. The meanings of the term…

English tenses are discussed in terms of a unique ordering of three moments of time: the moment of speech, the moment of the event and the reference point. The aims of the paper are to: (1) show the usefulness of introducing the concept of reference point in tense analysis, (2) provide an account of how to construe reference points semantically,…

For those students who qualify, the Advance Program offers an opportunity to follow a stimulating curriculum designed for the academically talented. This guide for ninth grade English was developed to broaden the student's skill and understanding of the history of the English language, composition, grammar, vocabulary development, and literature.…

The program described in this paper proposes individual, programed instruction of operations for sentence manipulation and word group frames, addressing the most frequent usage problems faced by college students. Serving as an aid to the student who needs particular reinforcement in one or more areas in composition, the program utilizes a…

This investigation studied the development of certain predicates called factives, such as "sad,""happy,""know," and "true," by studying the semantic effects of negation on the complements of both factive and non-factive predicates. The subjects were 60 children, divided into three age groups of ten boys and…

With increasing enrollments in journalism, many journalism instructors contend that problems of spelling, grammar, usage, and punctuation are particularly acute. Some of the questions raised at recent gatherings include: Are formal rules of English grammar dying? Is proper punctuation mere pedantry? What can journalism schools do about grammar and…

Evidence is offered to support the view that linguistic competence cannot in principle be divorced from linguistic performance in order to abstract universal properties of grammars, that rules of grammar inevitably incorporate perceptual strategies and constraints, and that grammaticality and acceptability are related to predictability. A theory…

Recent advances in the field of descriptive linguistics have produced not only an entirely new grammatical terminology, but also new definitions of traditional grammatical concepts. The result has been a somewhat bewildering profusion and confusion of overlapping terms. The present glossary is the result of several years of research and of…