A summary of a syntactic analysis of one hundred political slogans. Relatively few of them contain real verbs. This leads to the conclusion that aspect, not tense, is essential. Since political slogans use a mixed mode of communication, both situational and syntactic analyses are necessary. (Text is in French.) (AMH)

An experiment was conducted to test the hypothesis that students who can verbalize the rules governing such structures as the "ser/estar" dichotomy will be superior in the correct use of the structures. Ss were 50 English-speaking students of first-semester college Spanish. The hypothesis was confirmed. (RM)

The language of gaps is not only conceptually confused and factually false, it also undermines the efforts to establish and to maintain contact and communication between various groups of people. Two specific examples--race relations and the drug culture--illustrate the issue. (Author/RK)

An elaboration of the official instruction on teaching French to native speakers in elementary school. The topics covered are: Methodological development of exercises; the linguistic ability and milieu of the students; operative criteria; and the question of a logical progression or spontaneous use of grammar exercises. (Text is in French.) (AMH)

A study of the spoken French of 120 residents of Montreal. The researchers were interested in the linguistic and social factors influencing the use of "avoir" and "etre." Results show that this usage corresponds to a tendancy to regularize conjugations. (Text is in French.) (AMH)

The use of "interpretative tasks" is advocated in the teaching of short stories. Such tasks encourage learners to explore stories beyond the level of pure narrative and also encourage development of a "feel" for creative uses of English in literature. (Author/CB)

Discusses various definitions of markedness in terms of second language acquisition and describes a study testing one such definition which found that second language learners did not accept preposition stranding in the second language but did accept double object construction and suggested that transfer took place only with one of two marked…

Analysis of tense usage in 20 scientific articles from the "Journal of Pediatrics" reveals a hierarchy of sociolinguistic relationships among context-dependent rhetorical functions, context-independent temporal meanings, and actual tense choices. (Author/CB)

Vocabulary development exercises for students who are able to communicate relatively well but need vocabulary enrichment are described. (MSE)

Points out that the "-ed" participle forms of psychological verbs such as "amuse,""offend,""disappoint," etc. are gaining increasing grammatical acceptance since the "by"-agentive phrase (passive construction) and the adverb "very" co-occur in everyday usage. Results of experiments done…

Reports on a longitudinal study of young immigrants' spoken Danish during the first months of their stay, focusing on the Albanian-, Vietnamese-, and English-speaking adolescents' syntactic development from a functional perspective. Changes in early syntax are seen as being rooted in cognitive as well as interactional dimensions of language use.…

Posits two hypotheses arising from the great immigration to Sweden and the immigrants' use and learning of Swedish: (1) Swedish as used by immigrant children may show certain features, related to a creolization process; and (2) the Swedish language may in future show signs of influence from the varieties used by persons with immigrant background.…

Reports on dictionaries' power to misrepresent gender. Examines the definitions of three terms (clitoris, penis, and vagina) in eight leading high school dictionaries. Concludes that the absence of certain female gender-related terms represents another instance of institutionalized silence about the experience of women. (MM)

There is more to the process of paraphrasing than simple transliteration. A variety of paraphrase types exist, each using a different strategy and requiring a different interpretive approach. (MSE)

A linguistic analysis of a German short story examines the techniques which make it a powerful, outstanding story (namely the author's exploitation of the richness of German syntax and semantics) and demonstrates the general value of applying linguistic analysis to works of great literature. (CB)