The purposes of this paper are to examine the effects of synchronic description in distinguishing between interference and integration in cases of language contact, and to suggest alternative methods of description suitable for the analysis of systems in motion. The "synchronic fallacy" is defined here as the belief that one can describe a…

Throughout the centuries in Spain, the Castilians and Catalans have shared cultural, social, political, generational, and human experiences. This exchange was bound to have a linguistic influence of the Castilian on the Catalan language. (In Catalonia bilingualism is prevalent, and in Castile it is not.) While there have been lexical changes, the…

The annual bulletin of the French 8 section of the Annual Meeting of the Modern Language Association of America is presented with the texts of papers read at both the 1969 and 1970 sessions. The 1970 papers, in French, include Jean Louis Darbelnet's "Etude Sociolinguistique des contacts entre 1'Anglais et le Francais au Canada et en…

This study focused upon (1) whether the errors of sixth-grade children in spelling American English words were related to the dialect spoken by the children, and (2) what effect the teaching of phoneme-grapheme correspondence rules based upon a single dialect pattern would have on the spelling of second-grade children. First, eight sixth-grade…

This study measured how spelling textbook word-study exercises that call attention to word structure and phonic elements affect learning to spell, retention of learned spelling, and transfer of learned spelling to usage. Of particular concern were structural approaches which utilized essential changes in word form which may possibly invite error…

The practicing writer encounters four determinants of his use of prose. First, the language itself determines the expression: English, with its wealth of words and styles and with few traditional restrictions, provides problems of choice and temptations to overwrite. Second, the application of verse forms to the novel and a demand for consistently…

This junior high school study guide supplements Gore Vidal's "Visit to a Small Planet." Included are quizzes (with answer keys) and teaching suggestions on the presentation of the opus, oral reports, reading comprehension, various acts of the play, vocabulary and word analysis, sentence patterns and tranformations, language usage,…

In the last 15 years much attention has been devoted to the identification and description of varieties (register and style) of language within the same speech community. The Research Section, Directorate of Studies, Staff Development Branch, Public Service Commission of Canada carried out three TESL-oriented linguistic studies on the…

Syntactical rule differences in black dialect that can be more helpful to young adolescents' perceptions than the corresponding rules in standard English were studied. The syntactical rule in black dialect that was identified as being more explicit than the corresponding rule in standard English was the invariant "be" verb form (as in…

Traditional academic approaches to the study of rhetoric must be modified by those who explore the rhetoric of black Americans. Black rhetoric is inherently interactive, combining verbal, tonal, musical, and physical behaviors, whereas traditional white-oriented rhetoric can be viewed in terms of standard verbal and literary aspects of…

This book is a selected distillation of linguistic scholarship which describes from both a historical (diachronic) and a contemporary (synchronic) viewpoint that conglomerate set of dialects and idiolects called English. The emphasis is on contemporary American English. But foreign language examples are also given in an attempt to demonstrate the…

One of the results of the seventeenth-century revolution in learning was the rejection by scientists of classical rhetorical theories. The scientific societies established in colonial America reflected the European wish to replace the classic emphasis on "artificial" rhetorical style by making language usage more concrete, simple, and clear. In…

This handbook examines the role and the skills of professional journalists in newspaper, radio, magazine, and television reporting. It is designed for use in the college classroom and in professional courses aimed at improving the skills of newsmen. It can also serve as a handbook for the practicing journalist wishing to increase his knowledge…

This bulletin reports on condensations of tape-recorded lectures and discussions from a workshop which trained a nucleus of Baltimore City Public School personnel in new approaches to the study of the English language. Designed to serve as an orientation, it is made up of six major sections: (1) Charlton Laird discusses the history, nature, and…

Thirty essays on language and communication in their contemporary social contexts are brought together in this volume which differs significantly from other language readers in that it (1) treats only those aspects of the subjects that have demonstrated their appeal to a wide range of students, (2) emphasizes their social and cultural…