Examines the rhymes and linguistic tricks used by children, focusing on the rhyme, syllable structure, word boundaries, rhythm, meaning, and social uses of school children's poetry and rhymes. Examples are provided of various past and current poems and rhymes. (Contains 10 references.) (MDM)

Examines the distinctive dialect of the British royal family, as well as the "advanced" Received Pronunciation (RP) of the British upper class. Particular focus is on usages, such as the royal "we" and "one," as well as intergenerational differences among RP speakers. (Contains 21 references.) (MDM)

Individuals with autism without mental retardation (ages 8-18), Asperger syndrome, and nonspecific social problems (controls) engaged in a 10-minute conversation. Compared to controls, the higher functioning autistic group referred less to a previous stretch of the conversation and more to an aspect of the physical environment. The Asperger group…

Some recent studies on question formation in formal and informal spoken French are summarized and evaluated, and a number of first- and second-year textbooks published since 1986 are evaluated regarding their treatment of question formation. Recommendations are offered for teaching strategies. (Contains 33 references.) (LB)

Spontaneous utterances from 3 conversational contexts were generated by 3 groups of 10 children, including children with specific language impairments (SLI), and analyzed for accuracy of pronoun usage. Results indicated that children with SLI exhibited more total errors than chronological peers but not more than their language level peers. A…

Discusses the eight-month examination of interactive student-teacher journal entries of first-, third-, and fifth-grade Spanish-English bilingual classrooms. Concludes that students did not make a "transition" from native to second language, instead used a bilingual approach, shifting language in journal entries. Suggests mandatory…

Four experiments examined three- and four-year olds' interpretations of novel words applied to familiar objects in the sentence frame "This Y is X," where X is a novel word and Y is a familiar count noun. Results indicated that preschoolers understood that the novel words were either proper names or adjectives/mass nouns. (MDM)

This study used interviews and participant-observation to examine the concept of "brown-nosing" (using compliments and other positive statements to curry favor) in organizational settings in the United States. It identifies various types of brown-nosing, as well as the motives and consequences of such behavior. (30 references) (MDM)

This article suggests that the notion of "conceptual fluency," which has been derived from the current research on the role of metaphor in language and cognition, can be used to draft a teaching curriculum around the notion that metaphor is the organizing principle of common discourse. (51 references) (MDM)

Makes a case for using transliteration in order to avoid wholesale translation of new words from the natural sciences and technology into Indian languages. Proposes introduction of the Roman alphabet (in a modified form), so that the Indian languages can accommodate new loans within their own phonetic systems without any substantial changes. (SR)

Applies techniques of conversational analysis and sociolinguistics to provide an ethnographic account of a mediation in Thailand. (48 references) (LB)

First results of a survey of English use in 202 Italo-Australian subjects in 46 situations show a widespread shift to English, beginning with younger (first generation) subjects and increasing dramatically among members of the second generation. Italo-Australians' English usage depends more on personal characteristics of speakers than on topic or…

Mental terms in mothers' and their childrens' speech at two and three years were studied to examine relationships between maternal and child use. Nineteen mother and child dyads were videotaped for 1 hour on each of 2 days when children were 2;0 and again for 2 1-hour sessions on separate days when they were 3;0. Mental terms were noted. (JL)

This study examined age differences in the extent to which children infer and use a speaker's interpersonal goal to understand speech acts and to examine age differences in the extent to which children select responses that carry implications appropriate to the speaker's interpersonal goal. (15 references) (JL)

Scholars and teachers are increasingly realizing that language consists of more than the additive nature of learned morphological, syntactical, and lexical items. This paper describes the pragmatic implications of linguistic strings, based on research and interviews with native speakers of American English and standard German. (20 references)…