All modern Romance languages except Rumanian have a class of causative + infinitive construction in which the infinitive subject surfaces as an agentive. This article investigates the question of how agentivization of the infinitive subject is to be handled in these languages. (DS)

This article discusses the methodology and the works of the Englishman Harold E. Palmer, which deal with the teaching of foreign languages, in particular the teaching of English as a second language. (Text is in Italian.) (CFM)

In retelling 20 stories, 23 nursery-school children often refused to produce sentences in which causation was stated directly, but readily retold causation-implied utterances. Other results are discussed. (Author/RM)

A study was designed to ascertain whether syntactic avoidance behavior could be demonstrated for two groups of ESL learners (native speakers of Arabic and of Spanish and Portuguese) in accordance with contrastive analysis difficulty predictions. An avoidance pattern was found in accordance with such predictions. (CHK)

Asserts that quantitative analysis facilitates the linguistic study of variability in language. The implications of such study for education are in the areas of individual diagnosis and placement. Quantitative analysis is less comfortable to linguists when it is used to generalize or obscure linguistic differences. The latter seems to be the more…

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)

This article discusses nonverbal communication in its relation to teaching of foreign languages. Nonverbal communication is defined, evaluated, and discussed in terms of function, teacher personality, training techniques, and class arrangements. (CHK)

Outlines the contents of a one-week course called "Survival Spanish," which was taught to retired persons in an Elderhostel program. Differences in learning strategies between and presentation of material to adults and children are discussed, with specific emphasis on the older learner. (SED)

Certain concepts of redundancy at the phonological level are mistaken or misapplied. Three "fallacies" ("string of beads," vowel redundancy, and single error) of the nature of redundancy are explored. Although learners should be sensitized to other varieties of English, teachers should also provide a model of pronunciation that conforms to a…

The Communication Committee of the South African National Council for the Deaf is currently developing an artificial sign language which could be used with all of the country's ethnolinguistic groups. Guidelines and constraints for developing such an artificial language are outlined. (CB)

An evaluation study indicated that teachers differentiated standard American English from three marked varieties, with Hispanicized English rated more favorably than ungrammatical English and code switching. Four varieties of Spanish were differentiated on standard language continuum, with code switching the least acceptable. (CB)

Four hypotheses explaining the origin of Berbice Dutch, a Dutch-based Creole language spoken in the county of Berbice in Guyana, are explored. The most likely explanation is that the language was first spoken by Berbice slaves as a means of expressing the identity of a newly created "ethnic" group. (Author/CB)

A morphological analysis of a French language corpus focuses on patterns of truncation, shortened versions of multisyllabic words, in modern spoken usage and in the language used in newspapers. Specific examples of truncation are included.(MSE)

The systematic confounding and belittling of deaf people's language systems have negatively affected their language and learning skills. Deaf individuals must recognize this form of oppression and their own personal power by taking control of research and study in this field. (CB)

Investigates the role of topic-comment structure and the frequency of topic-prominence in the oral interlanguage of Chinese- Japanese-, Korean-, Arabic-, Farsi-, and Spanish-speaking adult students of English as a second language. Results indicate that second language learning is generally characterized by an early topic-comment stage, independent…