This paper describes a large computer-coded conversational speech data base and results of testing phonological rules on that data base. The study shows that frequency of rule application depends not only on phonological environments, but also on frequency of occurrence of specific words. That is, some rules are highly word-dependent, others are…

This paper reviews "The American Heritage Word Frequency Book" by John B. Carroll, Peter Davis, and Barry Richman (CDR). CDR is a word frequency count derived from school books for children in grades 3-9. Included in this review are an explanation of the development of CDR and a guide to its practical use. The guide can be used…

Language teaching requires textbook material that contains the most frequent concepts of a language. The computer brings its tremendous information processing ability to the task of establishing word frequency rankings, but the computer is limited to counting word-forms and not semantic concepts. The most recent word frequency dictionaries, in…

The three main purposes for this study were (1) to determine what phonic generalizations were being taught in grade 1 in four of the leading basal reading series; (2) to determine the degree of utility of each generalization within the framework of the grade in which it was presented, after the initial presentation; and (3) to set up a comparative…

"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…

This report is concerned with the formulation of a sequence for the spelling-to-sound correspondence rules that cover the 1- and 2-syllable words in the speech comprehension vocabularies of 6- and 9-year-olds. One major function of the rule sequence is to serve as a basis for developing reading instruction materials for the sequence and content of…

The purpose of this investigation was to determine the relation among reading readiness achievement, three instructional programs in personal writing, and achievement in personal writing of first-grade children. The 140 white, middle class first graders participating in the study were taught in one of three programs: (1) the Initial Alphabet…

The language of East Germany has undergone distinct semantic change since the arrival of the Soviet occupation forces in 1945, especially in the areas of politics, philosophy, and social organization. This is evident in governmental publications and in the shortwave transmissions of the official broadcasting station. Four sources of the change can…

As part of a study of the feasibility and effect of teaching Navajo children to read their own language first, a word count collected by 22 Navajo adults interviewing over 200 Navajo 6-year-olds was undertaken. This report discusses the word count and the interview texts in terms of (1) number of sentences, (2) number of words, (3) number of…

This final report of a study which developed a working corpus of spoken and written Portuguese from which syntactical studies could be conducted includes computer-processed data on which the findings and analysis are based. A data base, obtained by taping some 487 conversations between Brazil and the United States, serves as the corpus from which…

When it is published in four or five years, the "Dictionary of American Regional English" (DARE) will be the official dictionary of the American Dialect Society. This dictionary will contain information concerning vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammatical forms which are restricted regionally or socially in American speech. One…

Studies the link between the theory of the neurophysiology of color perception and Berlin and Kay's ideas on color linguistics and color perception. Two interpretations of studies of color terminology are shown, one supporting and one disproving the Whorf Thesis. (NCR)

This article discusses ways in which vocabulary building can be simplified for the student of Russian. Computer analysis of text vocabulary can assist in selecting words to be learned and assessing the relative difficulty of texts for both students and teachers. (CHK)

Discusses ways to improve quality of retrieval systems that depend on use of truncated words or quasi-word stems as indexing vocabulary. Problems of generalizability and stability of discriminant function analysis for selecting good topical terms in database drawn from abstracts of Harris Survey press releases are addressed. References are cited.…

A study provided an up-to-date source of word frequency information based in the kinds of reading materials to which high school and first-year college students are exposed. A corpus of 14,360,884 words was assembled from a comprehensive listing of reading materials from curriculum surveys, state curriculum guides, private school reading lists,…