Reported here is the work of two linguists, William Labov and Paul Cohen, and of two black researchers who know the culture of the inner city, Clarence Robins and John Lewis. Together they explore certain aspects of Black English vernacular (BEV) and certain political and cultural aspects of the black community. Part 1 (chapters 1-4) deals with…

Aside from phonological and syntactical structures, text is organized by its dramatis personae, plot, figures, point of view, and theme. These are, respectively, the entities mentioned, the spatial-temporal and causal linkages of events, comparisons and contrasts, propositional attitudes, and correspondence to some pattern. These modes of…

Active and passive sentences were presented with probable and improbable semantic content to 100 first graders and 100 kindergartners. "Irreversible" sentences were considered improbable. In a design employing syntax, probability, grade, and sex as factors, probability and syntax were found significant both as main effects and in their…

In a previous Semantic Differential study, Ayrer and Farber (1972) reported the results of a factor analysis which utilized a matrix sampling approach. Some problems were encountered (negative eigen-values). The current study did not involve matrix sampling, but the same basic results were obtained. This suggests matrix sampling may be an…

To ascertain if there are significant differences in the frequency of use of movables and connectors in the oral speech patterns of mature and immature children from middle and low socioeconomic levels, 60 beginning first grade children were studied. The Warner-Meeker-Eells Index of Status Characteristics classified children into middle and low…

The present practice of surnaming, by which the wife takes on the name of her husband and the children take on the name of the father, favors one of the sexes over the other. In this paper, the egalitarian surnaming system (ESS) is proposed. This system deals equally with the sexes and also serves important social functions, such as providing a…

To determine student readiness in any academic subject, teachers must determine individual levels of cognitive competencies children possess.

This article discusses the problems encountered in translating Chicano literary works into English. (Text is in Spanish.) (CLK)

The creative, purposeful departures from standard English used by advertisers are a worthwhile object of study in English classes. (JH)

This article discusses the relationship between human gestures and the development of Chinese characters. The four main principles of Chinese writing are outlined, and the characters are discussed in terms of whole bodily attitudes, spatial relationships, and foot and manual gestures. (CLK)

This article discusses the use of gestures in foreign language instruction, particularly in the teaching of intonation, stress, and consonant and vowel sounds. (Text is in French.) (CLK)

Computer-based multidimensional scaling techniques are used to determine the dimensionality of grammatical variation in three large sets of data: Ross' (1973) Noun Phrase and fake Noun Phrase data; Sankoff's (1974) complementizer "que"-deletion (Montreal French) data; and Cedergren's (1973) syllable-final S-reduction (Panamanian Spanish) data. (DB)

Discusses the linguistic, political and social forces central to the development of Chinese characters. (CLK)

In this article, syntactic evidence is presented to show that the two functions of place adverbials in Chinese cannot be reduced to one, and that both functions must be considered as semantic primes in the semantic structure of Chinese. (CLK)

There is a void in instructional materials which extends basic patterns in jazz into individualized or creative channels. This article investigates the parallels between improvised music and normal speech and explores the possibility of applying the principles of linguistic methodology to the teaching of jazz improvisation. (Author/KC)