Discusses children's acquisition of non-nominal, abstract words and argues that the use of these words parallels the child's cognitive development in trial-and-error problem solving and in development of insight. (EKN)

Reviews and discusses experimental and observational research on the function of the social environment of the child in the mastery of syntactic regularities during language acquisition. Theories based on modeling, imitation, and reinforcement are addressed. A 73-item reference list accompanies the text. (Author/JL)

Describes and analyzes features of teletypewriter (TTY) conversations, including patterned errors, openings and closings, and compensatory devices. Depicts several relationships among the characteristics of TTY users and relates features of their conversations to symbolic interactionist literature. (EKN)

Examines the literature on the language of working-class Black children, and emphasizes the need for a new framework for research. Describes research being conducted within such a revised framework (by the Center for Applied Linguistics), which focuses on analysis of stages in acquiring the total Black English system instead of focusing only on…

Discusses a sequential, three-stage model of how nonliteral expressions are understood, as proposed in recent linguistic, philosophical, and psychological studies. Testing the model's implication that nonliteral meanings of sentences are ignored whenever literal meanings are plausible, finds evidence that both meanings are processed simultaneously…

Mothers were found to respond differentially to their infants' object-related gestures. Pointing was found to have an especially strong correlation with mothers' object-labelling responses, which in turn were predictive of the child's object-naming vocabulary. (Author/JB)

Ten 1975-80 surveys and studies of FLES programs reported: Americans approve of FLES programs; children profit from FLES programs which stress interpersonal communication skills; and children develop increased interest in academic programs. Positive correlation exists between practice and proficiency in second language acquisition. Different…

Reviews significant research into child Black English, describes some of the controversies raised by that research, and offers some implications for teaching suggested by the research. (FL)

Presents a study of the early vocabulary of young children, considering variables such as contextual flexibility, content, and composition of the lexicon in comprehension and production. Reports evidence for a relative independence between these two domains, and for an early version of the referential style observed at later stages of development.…

Subjects ranging in age from 7 to 12 years selected correct story completion alternatives significantly more often when these alternatives were similes than when they were semantically equivalent metaphors, and when alternatives specifically denoted the referent of the metaphorical comparison than when the identity of the referent had to be…

Addresses questions about infant perceptual ability and the possibility of its decline as a function of development in the absence of specific experience. Compares English-speaking adults, Hindi-speaking adults, and 7-month-old infants on their ability to discriminate two pairs of natural Hindi (non-English) speech contrasts. (Author/RH)

Examines sex differences in vocalizations and play behaviors displayed toward an infant by preschoolers, preadolescents, and adults. Preschoolers showed less interaction than older subjects. Males talked and played less with the baby than did females at all ages; however, among adult subjects, no sex-role effects were found. (Author/RH)

Presents a restatement of the three basic constructs of "language ego,""language ego boundaries," and "permeability of language ego boundaries," discusses interdisciplinary "borrowing" of constructs, and examines the question of theory validation. (Author/AM)

Data on the durations of vowels preceding voiced and voiceless stops in three normal speakers and three esophageal speakers (who had had laryngectomies) suggested that the vowel length variations that were observed were language-specific, governed by phonological rules of English, and were not language universals. (Author/RL)

Presents two models of language acquisition: one postulating articulatory learning of underlying adult forms and the other both articulatory and perceptual learning. Reanalyzes the first model's data and concludes that two types of phonological rules are recognizable: perceptual-encoding rules and output (articulatory) rules. Identifies properties…