Presents method for familiarizing intermediate foreign language student with grammatical concepts through library research. Students are assigned to seek examples of language presented in class using recent periodical literature. Particularly beneficial for students intending to become foreign language teachers. (Author/BK)

Describes project whose purpose is specification of second-language communication needs for a large category of employees of the Public Service of Canada. Results were used to design and develop tests for evaluation of communicative proficiency in a second language. (Author/BK)

Examines young children's awareness that an actor's intention to transfer possession or control is a necessary precondition for correct use of the verb "give". Ninety-six four- through six-year-olds were presented with anecdotes in which the actor's behavior was held constant but his subjective goal was varied. (Author/RH)

A source of regularity in sentence construction is the recurrent use of certain fixed syntactic formats in explaining, describing, etc. Subjects exploit these regularities in sentence perception. An experiment on the perception of "perverse" sentences shows that listeners assimilate some of the features of sentences to "formulation frames."…

Discusses reasons why lawyers persist in their use of legalese. (PD)

Examines the sometimes puzzling behavior of writing teachers as they look for errors in language usage. Questions whether many of these teachers would notice the occurrence of certain features they call errors if they were not searching for errors in the first place. (RL)

Concludes that the use of anaphoric expressions (pronouns) in some instances will interfere with the reading comprehension of eighth-grade students. (FL)

Explains why humor should be studied in English classrooms and how humorous writing serves as a vehicle for making its readers more socially conscious of human values. Offers a list of books that can be used in classroom discussions of humor. (RL)

Reports three experiments which investigated the ability of children aged four to nine years to organize body-location information in recall. Attempted to correct for methodological confounding in previous similar research. (JMB)

Ascertained whether chemistry instructors have a consistent preference for particular ways of idea expression by chemistry students. Comparisons of responses on a chemistry preference test were made among chemistry instructors, chemistry majors and nonscience majors. (CS)

The parameters that help learners decipher imperfective usage (particularly KF) in Russian are described. Subcategories of KF which do not overlap are analyzed through their contextual usage in detective stories. Suggestions are made for helping learners decode KF in speech and writing. (PMJ)

Methods of second language instruction that actively integrate common language usage are encouraged, as opposed to those that reduce language to phraseological inventories. The former approach is deemed essential to developing communicative competence. (MSE)

Teaching modern standard English means eliminating instruction of outmoded or questionable usage distinctions so that more time can be devoted to spelling, punctuation, grammar and sentence structure. (Author)

Outlines a procedure for predicting the appropriateness of signing as a communicative technique for individuals with speaking impairments. The procedure compares a potential learner's motor control with those necessary for the handshapes, location, and movements of a compiled vocabulary. A procedure for predicting future possible vocabulary is…

Discusses two basic areas of difference between British and American English, namely the complementation of certain participles and the complementation of certain verbs. Complementation after "concerned" and "interested" is illustrated by several examples taken from speech and from newspaper advertisements. (AMH)