Discusses the presence of an implied author and its appropriateness as a rhetorical device in technical discourse. Concludes that it enhances the information transfer from writer to text to reader. (MS)

American Sign Language verbs have several ways to indicate time: 1)reference to a specific time; 2) extension at wrist, elbow, or shoulder to indicate future time; 3) flexion at wrist, elbow, or shoulder to indicate past tense. (Author/LMO)

Thirty-three College of Education professors at the University of Saskatchewan were surveyed to determine their expectations and perceptions of and attitudes toward student writing. Results indicate that professors complained more about lack of student ability in the argumentative mode than student errors in syntax and mechanics of writing. (TJH)

Introduces the transitivity model of textual analysis, assesses its application to news reports, and discusses the critical linguistic background in which it has proved popular. (JK)

Briefly discusses the concepts of "subject,""complement,""transitivity," and "intransitivity," contrasts the classes of complements in German and Italian based on identical criteria of classification, justifies such a classification for complements, and suggests didactic implications for the theory of…

Examined the syntactic language skills of 48 sixth and ninth graders. Student narratives were analyzed for differences in syntax, T-unit length, clause length, and clause usage. Findings indicated statistically significant differences between groups in the words per T-unit and the words per clause used in the narratives. Differences were not found…

Reports outcomes of three experiments in which children were taught a sentence form that they did not as yet understand. Investigates whether (1) acquisition of word order relations for sentence form would be affected by pragmatic ordering principles and (2) whether referent animacy would be included in children's rules for word order. (Author/BE)

Reviews literature on language transfer and language universals. Defines language universals as those linguistic elements which are common to all languages. Discusses language transfer and language universals as interacting phenomena. Concludes that language universals serve as an overall guiding principle in second language acquisition,…

Readability formulas may detract from textbook quality. They overlook text and reader characteristics that affect comprehension. Moreover, average "readability levels" ignore wide variations within texts and between scales. The shortened sentences and simplified vocabulary used to conform texts to formulas sacrifice precision and connectedness,…

Reviews the notions of system and variability as applied to interlanguages, especially with respect to variability in the syntax of second language learners. Summarizes the findings of Huebner with respect to referentiality and then examines some new data collected 20 months after the end of the initial study. (SED)

Responds to Gussenhoven's essay (1983) which endorses the deterministic view in description of English stress and accent. Argues that accents respond to the speaker's sensation of interest in what he/she is saying plus a general desire to impress and that stress is part of the morphology of words. (SED)

In a study of the use of grammatical morphemes by 10 hearing-impaired children (5-15 years old) and 10 normal-hearing children matched on the basis of mean length of utterance, results revealed no significant differences in correct grammatical morphemes used and identical order of acquisition for both groups. (Author/CL)

Analysis of spontaneous language samples of eight children (4-11 years old) diagnosed with developmental verbal apraxia (motor speech disorder) revealed that at least some of the errors could not be attributed to motor speech and/or phonologic limitations but rather indicated concomitant syntactic disorders. (Author/CL)

This study profiled phonological and morphosyntactic configurations of Appalachian English in the context of local and regional contact varieties, investigating the status of fronted /o/ and monopthong /ay for this variety and discussing such features as r-lessness, copula absence, plural -s absence on measure/count nouns, and a-prefixing. It…