Health literacy is important for all adults. Because lower health literacy is associated with lower educational attainment, many adult basic and literacy education programs increasingly provide health education to low-literate adults to improve their health literacy. Using data from the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL), this study…

A 1978 theory of politeness based on the concept of "face" (public self-image) and proposed at the time as comprehensive and universal, is examined in the context of more recent research. The theory holds that everyone has both negative and positive face, both of which are threatened by another at times, and that individuals will choose…

Exploring how people create meaning from their personal experience is central to clinical practice, and is equally important in examining the development of the intern therapist's clinical skills. This study examined supervision session discussions and interns' accounts of their training experiences in order to understand how meaning and knowledge…

This book is about language prejudice as experienced by Puerto Ricans in the mainland United States. Prejudice is expressed as social signs that include, but go well beyond, language. When people express linguistic prejudices, they generally start by objectifying the languages in question as though the languages were sharply defined. For Puerto…

English and Basque versions of this booklet present information on Euskal Herria, the Basque Country that straddles the Franco-Spanish border. "Euskal Herria" designates both land and people: "the Basque speech community." The area, which constitutes the ancient Kingdom of Navarre, represents the unbroken presence of Basque…

Part of a larger study on pre-school children's ability to use the computer to create art, a study examined the language children used as they were exposed to and trained to use a computer software program. Subjects were 4 preschool children (4 or 5 years of age). Audio and video recordings of the children over 8 sessions yielded a total of 1,501…

Little research has been conducted on middle school conduct codes or their effect on unacceptable behavior. This paper presents findings of a study that examined the conduct codes of 59 middle schools across the United States. All of the middle school handbooks addressed unacceptable language (for example, obscenity, harassment, and profanity) in…

A non-structural model is proposed for quantifying and analyzing the dynamics of language attrition, particularly among immigrants in a second language environment, based on examination of disfluencies (hesitations, errors, and repairs). The first chapter discusses limitations of the conventional synchronic textual approach to analyzing language…

This videotape showcases how seven young Canadians, all of varied backgrounds and experiences, learned French as a second language and how they use and maintain those language skills in their work, daily life, and further education. All of the subjects learned French in immersion, core French, and two-way bilingual education programs in Canada.…

This book focuses on the theoretical, empirical and practice-based implications of recognizing cultural diversity in the psychology of women. Contributors to this volume share the common objective of keeping feminist psychology robust and useful. Chapters in the first section, "Cultural Diversity in Theory and Methodology in Feminist…

The use of rhetorical voice in literature and news reporting is examined and its implications for classroom study of literature are discussed. Analysis is based on Mikhail Bakhtin's theory of the novel and the definition of "voice" as an identifiable social role or position that a character enacts, and "ventriloquation" as the…

Developed in a wide variety of classrooms for students in grades 4-6 and in collaboration with teachers who have used the material successfully, this two-volume set presents a way to get students excited about words. The set can also be used with younger and older students, even with adults. The two volumes provide: an "up-on-your-feet,…

Three articles on near-native English language proficiency are presented. "Attitudes to English Usage: A Comparison between Native and Non-Native Speakers," by Ann-Christin Miemois, reports on a study of attitudes toward usage of certain lexical items in English in four distinct situations. Subjects were natives of Finland and New…

Responding to the increasing demand for the assessment of authentic language use, this book emphasizes that portfolios must first be useful and successful as part of instruction before they can be used effectively for assessment. Portfolios are presented in the book as working (not "show" portfolios) to promote the student's involvement…

An analysis of the compound verb system of Persian marks constructions euphemistically by producing an indirect order effect and by alternating different compound and simple forms that bear the same denotation but are governed by a rigorous code of ethics. What really carries the semantic reference in these cases is the process of construing…