Examined gender and age patterns of diminutive use in conversations between Spanish-speaking Peruvian mothers and their 3- and 5-year-old children. Results confirm previous findings concerning both parents' greater use of diminutives with younger children and children's early acquisition of this aspect of morphology. Findings do not support…

Offers a system that can make up one element of a program to teach students delivery of broadcast news. Presents a principled approach, based on linguistic research, to teaching students how to decide what words to emphasize, so that they can mark their scripts before reading them aloud. Examines 18 textbooks and their treatment of delivery. (SG)

Presents findings from a sociolinguistic study of the language use and language attitudes of Hispanic families in a small community in upstate New York. Sought to identify and describe the familial linguistic patterns that are leading to an emerging population of US-born Spanish speakers by examining the factors that are related to Spanish…

Investigated the relevance of emotional and familial factors to language maintenance in immigrant families. Information on the family relations of 40 children from Chinese-speaking immigrant families in Sydney, Australia. Analysis revealed that children likely to use their parents' mother tongue were those who perceived their family to be more…

Examines the fifth edition of S. I. Hayakawa's "Language in Action" in terms of original strengths and major content still intact, reorganization of chapters with updated application sections, and new chapters on television advertisement and use of deceptive language. (KEH)

Considers the social nature of language and applies it to the composition classroom. Demonstrates how the composition teacher's conception of language influences the student's position of power. Argues that the "democratic" use of language allows students from lower social classes to appropriate language and to make changes which will…

Outlines a mechanism for action in language preservation and renewal, preventing extinction of Canada's aboriginal languages. Proposes the Aboriginal Languages Foundation as part of a national strategy whereby the community retains control over language renewal programs with funding and resources from the Canadian government. Contains 37…

Examines a variety of mistakes found in published materials and practiced by classroom teachers. Provides examples of mistakes in reading time, place value, price notation, geometry, and language. (YP)

Discusses problems that U.S. companies may experience in getting computer programs and other related products accepted in other countries because of difficulties in translating the English language used in the products. Topics discussed include slang, acronyms, and abbreviations; economic and financial differences; cultural differences; and…

Describes a self-report instrument designed to measure levels of acculturation among Mexican-American adolescents and adults in the areas of intra- and extrafamily language use, social affiliations and activities, cultural familiarity and activities, and cultural identification and pride. Inventory can be used to measure cultural resistance,…

Describes an activity to provide the stimulus for the semantic elaboration that leads to students' word ownership. Uses graphic representation to expand and refine concepts and relate new knowledge to previous experiences. (MG)

Corrected reprint of an article originally published in Language Arts, volume 66 number 2 (February 1989). See CS 737 385. (MM)

Preschool children were given a memory task that required repeating a list of animal names and a sentence imitation task. Results confirmed a relationship between word span and language imitation in younger preschool children and the notion of a memory constraint on early spontaneous language. Increasing mastery of linguistic rules appeared to…

Language shift and language loss were studied in three generations of a Dutch immigrant family. Findings from an analysis of letters, interviews, a domain questionnaire, and editing and correction tests suggest increases in language shift with each generation although the degree of loss was rather slow in the first and second generation. (Contains…

A framework is formulated to explain the context and content sensitivity involved in the meaning of utterances of sentences containing a modal auxiliary. It is argued that the English language is based in a relatively simple, well-structured semantic system, yet it is used on a highly complex world of communication. (Contains 39 references.) (LB)