The primary purpose of this study was to examine the writing of elementary children, grades four through six, to determine the relationship between specified genre and the development and use of figurative language. Three teachers, one each in grades four, five, and six in the Metropolitan School District of Perry Township, Indiana, collected…

The first section of this paper is a general discussion of standard English. The nine sections which follow discuss the concept of correctness and the ideological differences between grammarians and purists; standard English in a historical perspective; Eric Partridge's (1969) taxonomy of the degrees and kinds of standard English, including…

This is an analysis of the stylistic variation in English of a wide range of speakers. A main point is that in analyzing speech styles it is important to elecit more than one style from each speaker, as both interview conditions and other factors may influence style. The paper presents some concrete examples of two major stylistic divisions,…

In this study, 100 second graders from a midwestern city were given an oral syntax test which measured seventeen syntactic competencies and a parallel written syntax test. Metropolitan reading and Slosson intelligence tests were also administered. Significant relationships between syntax attainment and reading achievement (R = .70) and between…

The purpose of the research covered by this final report was to produce a Javanese-English dictionary, the first ever to exist. Source materials were of two major kinds: (1) pre-Revolution sources: the two most recetnly published Javanese dictionaries (see Bibliography, Pigeaud and Poerwadarminta), predating the 1945 Indonesian war for…

This paper discusses the subject of fragments as they appear in the writing of college freshmen. It examines the conditions under which certain syntactic constructions are identified as fragments and the reasons for designating some of these fragments as nonpenalty and others as penalty types. The fragment is viewed here as a syntactic…

The governmental process entails a great deal of talk and writing. Much political language is informal, and some is official. In either case, its linguistic categorizations shape perceptions and feelings about problematic and controversial public issues, reflecting and playing upon the ambivalence and changing perspectives of all who are involved.…

To speak, write, and react to language with awareness is to live at least somewhat more fully than to be oblivious to the manifold nuances and potentialities of language. With this idea in mind, the rationales, strategies, and implications of three language-related assignments for advanced composition are presented. The first assignment asks…

This report, the first of a series of three, describes a study of the structure and use of language in a defined type of communication situation. Following a review of psychological, sociological, and linguistic studies dealing with the structure of communication or the structure of discourse, a type of goal-directed (convergent) communication is…

With the cooperation of the Alaska state-operated schools and the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), a study of language capabilities of entering primary students was accomplished. Some 175 rural schools were contacted, and replies were received from 96 schools--a 55% response rate, of which 38 (35%) were received from state-operated schools and 58…

"Variety" is defined as a "unique configuration of linguistic features." These features characterize the language of conversation, unscripted commentary, religion, newspaper reporting, and legal documents. Everyone learns many varieties of at least one language. The ambiguity of usage labels like "slang" and "colloquial" indicates that we know…

An attempt is made to develop a method for the presentation of temporal and spatial sociolinguistic data in order to study phenomena of bilingual interaction. Domain of language usage and other sociocultural variables are abstracted from extant sources, normalized and compared with the aim of studying sociolinguistic variation, its reflection on…

Presented in this publication are the findings from a selected group of 52 studies conducted by graduate students at the University of Kansas. Undertaken as research for masters' and doctoral degrees, these studies are limited to problems occupying public school teachers of grades 7-13. Specific areas of the research are grammar and usage (6…

The objectives of this study were to determine the strength and importance of the relationships among features of oral and written language proficiency and their accompanying thought processes, and to dimensionalize variables that may be manipulated to assist development of disadvantaged children. Test scores from measures of language/thinking…

Three examples are given of cases where differences between Spanish and English syntax and intonation patterns are taught best through direct translation. Grammatical difficulties caused by "gustar" are overcome through the use of translation using "appeal" rather than "please". Similarly, problems for native speakers of English arising with…