The need to find which social contexts elicit children's fullest language repertoire generated this study of the effects of three social distance variables on language production, as measured by mean length of communication unit, vocabulary diversity, and use of black English. The social distance variables investigated included race and sex of…

This paper examines the written English of Chicano freshman composition students and presents a contrastive analysis of the written English of the hypothetical college freshman, which approximates "standard" English, and the written English of 93 Chicano freshmen. Discussion focuses on various linguistic differences, classified in the…

The diagnostic problem presented by children without obvious neurological, cognitive, genetic, emotional or environmental basis for their atypical or delayed language development is discussed. One unresolved issue is whether the deficits of such dysphasic children are linguistic or are more fundamental cognitive or perceptuomotor deficits. A…

The five technical working papers that comprise the two volumes of this document are related to the problem of creating a valid process model of human communication in dialogue. In Volume 1 both papers consider reference as a phenomenon in text. The first surveys reference identification and resolution methods in various existing natural language…

The technical working papers that comprise the two volumes of this document are related to the problem of creating a valid process model of human communication in dialogue. In Volume 2, the first paper concerns study methodology, and raises such issues as the choice between system-building and process-building, and the advantages of studying cases…

In dealing with children's language, this document provides a picture of how language is considered in child development, how children differ in their use of language, and how attitudes about children's language tend to be developed. The document may be used for any inservice program on children's speech (directly observable vocal behaviors),…

A suggestion is made for solving the problem of testing spoken English. The students were from the Economics Department of a university in Finland. Their needs (practical ones), their courses in spoken English, the form of the test--oral, reading, and writing--and the marking system are considered. (SCC)

Examines errors made by English speakers learning German and, in attempting to find sources for them, contrasts certain phenomena of German and English grammar. The phenomena in question are cleft sentences and the treatment of case. (TL)

Outlines a lesson in a college Spanish class in which the students were shown the close relationship between Spanish and Portuguese. This kind of class not only makes the students more conscious of the relatedness of languages but also can stimulate their interest in studying another language. (CFM)

Offers a model for research in second language acquisition. The model is based on implicational analysis and attempts to account for individuals and groups, systematicity and variability. An analysis of the use of grammatical morphemes by Spanish-speaking students of English illustrates the model. (Author/AM)

After describing a variety of compensatory programs that have not been very successful for children who enter school speaking nonstandard dialects, the author describes a bidialectal program that teaches standard usage as "school language" but accepts nonstandard dialects as "everyday language," and makes the differences…

Based on a study of 50 children between the ages of 3;0 and 5;6, the reasons for the differential difficulty of various forms of "who,""why,""when," and "how" questions are postulated. (EJS)

Considers why Bernstein's theory of language codes has been misinterpreted, and describes an experiment in which undergraduate students interpret categories derived from Bernstein's lists of "linguistic code markers" in accordance with expectations emanating from a simplistic understanding of the theory. Suggests that the labelling…

Discovers that all is not well with the EEC-funded mother tongue project in Bedford. (Editor)

An analysis of "de" sentences in Chinese in order to capture their syntactic and semantic features and, as a result, to state rules for generating them. The study is organized under eight headings and provides 147 examples in Chinese and English. (AMH)