An approach based on sociolinguistic theory is reported that was devised to describe the way written language operates in the different domains that make up the everyday lives of a given group of people. The approach involves the practices that the people use to deal with written language, and the perceptions (uses, beliefs, attitudes) they have…

An autosegmental account of the child's acquisition of grammatical tone in Sesotho, a southern Bantu language, is presented. The following theoretical questions are addressed: (1) When and how does the child figure out that Sesotho is a tonal rather than intonational, stress, or accentual language?; (2) How does the child acquire tonal rules?; and…

A study investigated how Samoan adults use genitive constructions in comparison with use by four young children. Results suggest that while adults and children both favor a clausal strategy of highlighting the affected object in a manipulative activity scene, Samoan children have difficulty exploiting the grammar of genitive noun phrases to encode…

This study examined the possible sources of variability in sign language mastery in two deaf children of hearing parents. The study considered the interaction of environmental and innate factors within the framework of the "Nativization" hypothesis, which suggests that all language learners initially construct a linguistic system which…

A study examined the linguistic strategies of strong and weak readers in grades three and six within the context of D. E. Rumelhart's interactive model of the reading process. A linguistic prediction task was set up to investigate students' use of orthographic constraints, syntactic redundancy, and syntactic and semantic knowledge. A program was…

Research was conducted to consider in detail the intergenerational dimensions of bilingualism in the Puerto Rican community in New York City via the children of adult immigrants who had abandoned their native language usage and who later revived it. The issues in focus are language choice, language change, language use, and language learning. The…

An eclectic, ethnographic methodology is presented for studying the content and acquisition of children's environmental learning, knowledge, and interaction in a transitional economy in rural Sudan. Drawing on methods of geography, linguistics, and anthropology, the paper attempts to provide a valid alternative to most of the methods used in…

Presentations on aspects of foreign language instruction include: "A World Without Walls" (Lorraine A. Strasheim); "Practical Aspects of Individualizing Foreign Language Instruction" (Howard B. Altman); "Teaching Foreign Language Through Literature" (Jeanne Varney Pleasants); "Individualization of Foreign Language Instruction" (Howard B. Altman);…

English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) students in general, and Chinese speakers in particular, often omit or misuse English prepositions in speaking or writing. A study traced the history and structure of the English preposition, using contrastive analysis and error analysis to find sources of Chinese error. To determine if Chinese speakers exceed…

In order to teach anything, two fundamental questions must be asked and answered continually: What should be taught, and how should it be taught? The answer to the second question is highly dependent on the answer to the first, but the present answer to the first question is inadequate and inappropriate to today's communication tools. Language…

A study investigated how American learners acquire the pragmatics of Kiswahili greetings in a foreign language context. Subjects were 16 beginning, 12 intermediate, and 4 advanced students. After an initial month-long observation period, the following hypotheses were formed: (1) learners do not readily initiate greetings; and (2) most learners may…

This study explored the age variable within the framework of Stephen Krashen's (1973, 1977, 1978, 1981, 1982) monitor hypothesis. The experiment conducted two types of English language lessons based on antithetical pedagogical strategies. The first aimed at the activation of monitor use, constructed around formal learning tasks and the second…

In linguistic analysis of the speech act, the data used to support theoretical conclusions are too often comprised of semantically isolated utterances of the ideal speaker-hearer. In reality, one of the most revealing kinds of data is imperfect data, where the functioning language processes are often unmasked. The study of first language…

Current issues in the literature on the testing of linguistic and communicative proficiency are reviewed and discussed in relation to reading comprehension testing. Several theoretical issues in language testing are discussed, including testing purposes and test validity. Areas of concern regarding methods of testing reading comprehension are then…

The graphemic and functional distribution of Chinese punctuation markers are outlined, and the implications of Chinese punctuation practices for second language instruction are discussed. Three kinds of Chinese punctuation markers are described: those graphically unique to Chinese, those written and used in the same manner in both Chinese and…