To determine whether or not students in grades 2 and 4 comprehended materials written with patterns that appear frequently in their speech better than materials written with patterns that appear infrequently, two reading comprehension tests were devised by the investigator. Subjects were all second- and fourth-grade classrooms from two similar…

The purpose of this study was to describe the function-form relationships in a child's developing language by establishing a methodology for examining the child's early propositions and the predications which express them, identifying the points in the syntactic hierarchy at which different "meanings" are encoded, and investigating the…

A description is presented of a computer-assisted language analysis system (CALAS) which can serve as a method for isolating and displaying language utterances found in conversation. The purpose of CALAS is stated as being to deal with the question of whether it is possible to detect, isolate, and display information indicative of what is…

Designed to measure the acquisition of syntactic structures in kindergarten, first, and second graders, this test examines specific linguistic structures which appear to be acquired during the early elementary school years. Thirty-six sentences of equal length, consisting of words from a first-grade word list, are used to examine fifteen…

This study investigated the developmental nature of linguistic knowledge revealed in children's spelling. Five groups of children from middle to upper income families in grades 2, 4, 6, 9, and 12 were selected as subjects. It was assumed that linguistic resourcefulness changes as a result of formal schooling and that spelling errors would…

This study investigated the credibility dimensions underlying standard and nonstandard speech in respect to concept-scale interaction, even though the findings suggest that the factors underlying reactions to nonstandard speech might differ from those underlying reactions to standard speech. The subjects, thirty-two college students enrolled in an…

This article makes two points about foreign language: (1) proper pronunciation is indispensable to initial accuracy and comprehension, as well as to later study of literature and culture; and (2) the best approach to pronunciation is based on the native language as a contrastive model. Taking as an example the learning of German by…

This book is an introduction to linguistics, written for the beginning student. Among the topics explored are speculations about the origins of language, its nature, how it grows, and how it changes. Other topics include what is essential in the structure of language, the similarities and differences among languages, how the varying patterns of…

Using second grade children, this study was designed to investigate the differences (or lack of differences) among the Interview, the Picture Stimulus Interview, and the Free Play Situation techniques in the categories of productivity, thought groups, compound structures, complex structures, and words per thought group as a means of gaining a…

This study, an outgrowth of the "Linguistic Atlas of the United States and Canada," based on atlas field records covering the entire Eastern United States, enables the author to trace the geographical spread and also the social distribution of the linguistic features that are treated. Research demonstrates how early culture centers and…

As part of a study of the feasibility and effect of teaching Navajo children to read their own language first, the results of analysis of grapheme and unit frequencies noted in the speech of Navajo 6-year-olds are presented in this report. Material gathered by means of interviews conducted by 22 adult Navajos with over 200 Navajo children is…

This study was undertaken to determine some of the effects of role change on children's language production. The questions to be answered were: (1) To what degree is the language of a 6th grade child more conplex in the tutor role than it is in the role of student?; (2) Is there a significant difference in the variety of basic language patterns…

This paper deals with the counterexamples to the general principles that: (1) a sentence as utterance has only one illocutionary force, in the sense of J.L. Austin; and (2) performative verbs do not normally retain illocutionary force in embedded contexts. Various tests for illocutionary force are applied, such as substitution of another speech…

This paper examines language variation in terms of overdetermination and underdetermination of structural information as related to grammatical rules and the structure of social behavior. (CLK)