This annotated bibliography contains 28 references to articles in the ERIC database about interpersonal communication. It contains citations from the period between 1987 and 1989 and is divided into three sections. The first section presents several citations for instructional strategies in the area of interpersonal communications. The second…

The language of twins allows researchers in language development to examine acquisition in a unique environment. Researchers investigating the nature-nurture controversy, the order of acquisition, and other linguistic features find the twin situation particularly interesting because of the children's shared genetic makeup and environment. A…

A study of children's egocentrism in their use of person and case examined whether 7-year-olds would tend to cast themselves as subjects in sentences using the verbs "give, show, say, tell, and lend," and what role they might assign the hearer. In 85 utterances, the children (N=17), with an average age of 7.8 years, showed the expected…

As a result of the neglect of verbal training in the public schools, students, community members, and even some teachers are using words capriciously and often incorrectly. If this trend continues, words will cease to have precise meanings, and thus cease to be conveyors of thought, expression, and philosophies. It is up to educators to reverse…

Storytelling has long been a part of our culture, and teachers should recognize its value as a pedagogical tool. The Word Weaving program, an experimental storytelling program, includes folk tales, literary tales, adaptations, and original and true stories from the teller. In it, all stories are simply told to a class without a book in evidence.…

High school and college writing assignments encourage students to avoid every sense of purposeful self-involvement by directing all their attention to the world or to others. Perhaps teachers need to be reminded that, unless they give students the opportunity and occasion to focus on instrumental relationships between the world, other people and…

One goal of computer-based instruction in writing is to help students to edit their compositions, particularly those compositions written on a word processor. This can be accomplished by a complete editing program that would contain the full set of mechanics rules--capitalization, punctuation, spelling, usage--appropriate for the grade level of…

A review of literature on communicative competence reveals many meanings of the concept and of the way it should be used in second and foreign language instruction. In the literature there are two views: that communicative competence includes grammatical competence, and that it does not; or at least the ability to communicate one's meaning is…

An observable feature of learner language, linguistic variability, is described and used as the basis for speculating about an aspect of the process of second language learning. It is hypothesized that variation in correct use of target language forms varies as a function of the demands placed on the learner to produce these forms. Three groups of…

Prediction of academic success in introductory psychology courses is useful for both students and teachers. Although scores on the major intellectually oriented standardized aptitude tests are often useful predictors of introductory psychology grades, these scores are frequently unavailable. When major standardized measures of general intellectual…

The teaching of politeness formulas and their spontaneous use by young children were investigated. The use of such formulas as greetings and thanks was studied in terms of the cultural features that may interact with the learning of such formulas and the analyses children make concerning the situations in which they are used. Conversations were…

Gender is a structure of language and an attendant attribute for each noun and all of its immediate qualifiers, providing a set of categories into which the nouns of languages are divided. Through the phenomenon of concord, verbs, adjectives, and articles are made to agree with nouns in gender, person, number, and case. Gender classifies language…

Intended for college teachers and students of Anglo-Saxon literature, this paper provides an overview of the sophisticated poetic devices used by the "Beowulf" poet. The paper examines how old English words for color range in hues in a way that modern English words do not, and how these words for color are used in "Beowulf."…

The connections among language learning, language education, and children's wordplay are explored in this book. Each chapter examines some aspect of the interrelations between wordplay activities and the goals of language education. The book is divided into three sections, with the first section exploring wordplay and language learning in the…

The earlier composition is introduced in language instruction, the sooner students see it as a means for self-expression. However, beginning students have not learned enough grammar to produce intelligible compositions and intermediate students frequently have difficulty in synthesizing what they have learned. Thus the teacher must try to correct…