In an interview, a professor of linguistics at Carleton University (Ontario) discusses his use of computers and the programing language LOGO in a fourth-year linguistics course. LOGO was chosen because of its similarity to natural language and its method of structuring data. The first use was in an experimental linguistics seminar, in which the…

In the teaching of creative writing to students of French as a second language, the use of the reformulation technique has proved effective. The writing process is divided into stages: selection of a topic, discussion with peers, writing of a first draft, revision with peers, submission to the instructor, further revision, editing and…

An examination of the reasons behind the strong evidence that practice in sentence combining leads to overall superiority in writing began with the development of a more precise syntactic instrument than had been used previously and a new set of criteria for rhetorical analysis which focused on unity, organization, succinctness, and cohesiveness.…

Knowing the connections between ideas and the interrelationships among groups of ideas is a skill that can be useful throughout the writing process. Writers who are aware of the meaning relationships existing between sentences and ideas can discover the logical possibilities inherent in their topic at the prewriting stage, determine patterns for…

This work is an attempt to explain the rationale and thinking that contributes to the "communication strategy" approach and to illustrate the practical applications of its ideas to second language teaching. It also proposes an approach to teaching based on two major goals: first, to incorporate the better features of audiolingual methods into a…

A study and review of the revisions of professional writers reveals 11 functions of revision: (1) altering form, (2) organizing information, (3) creating transitions, (4) deleting information, (5) expanding information, (6) emphasizing information, (7) subordinating information, (8) creating immediacy, (9) improving syntactic structures, (10)…

A fundamental principle of second language acquisition is stated and applied to language teaching. The principle states that learners acquire a second language when they receive comprehensible input in situations where their affective filters are sufficiently low. The theoretical background of this principle consists of five hypotheses: the…

A review of the changes in the English elementary and secondary school curricula in Canada from about l900 reveals two kinds of language knowledge: knowing "how" (knowledge measuring aspects of language performance) and knowing "that" (factual information about language). Until approximately l900, the belief existed that knowledge about the…

Intended for college teachers and students of Anglo-Saxon literature, this paper provides an overview of the sophisticated poetic devices used by the "Beowulf" poet. The paper examines how old English words for color range in hues in a way that modern English words do not, and how these words for color are used in "Beowulf."…

A study of the structure of the speech act known as an apology looked at the differences in linguistic strategies used by advanced nonnative English language learners and native speakers in apology behavior, and whether the differences result from the severity of the offense or the familiarity of the interlocutors. An apology is seen as consisting…

The horrific events of 11 September 2001, when four hijacked jetliners crashed into and collapsed the twin-towered World Trade Center in New York, slammed into the Pentagon, and nose-dived into a field in rural Pennsylvania (ostensibly on a mission to destroy the U.S. Capitol or the White House), have been indelibly etched into the nation's…

The spontaneous language behavior of 100 mother-child pairs was observed in an effort to link it with social class membership. Results indicated that some differences in verbalizations existed and furnished support for the socio-linguistic theories of Basil Bernstein. (Author/SDH)

A more realistic understanding of reading problems might result from study of how disadvantaged people cope with problems presented by literate activity. (JH)

The interaction between theoretical linguistics and language teaching has historically been problematic. This interaction is viewed here from the standpoint of educational linguistics, which is the intersection of linguistics and related language sciences with formal and informal education. The issue is the relevant educational problem that…

This book is concerned with tracing the history and logic of the psycholinguistic orientation toward reading, and is directed at reading teachers and teachers of language skills and communication processes in general. Its underlying theme is that reading is essentially a communicative process that can be fairly autonomously acquired when text…