Parallel designs were used to test the hypotheses that (1) strongly assertive forms would be attributed relatively more often to females, and (2) syntactic forms associated with males would be rated more intelligent and those associated with females less so. The results of the study were consistent with each of these predictions, suggesting that…

This paper examines the speech performance characteristic of the college lecturer. One of the most organized forms of speech performance, the lecture functions as a referential monologue and has a necessarily topical focus. Specifically dealt with are the ways in which lecturers introduce new topics, link together topical utterances, and close out…

In this paper various sexist practices in the English language are discussed and feminist criticism of these practices is given. This criticism is analyzed in terms of the kinds of linguistic changes proposed and the extent to which these changes have taken hold, assessing the prospects for success of each type of change. Three particular…

This four-part study, which focused on the relationship between the incidence of Black English and the child's perception that Black English is not preferred speech, identified the phonological characteristics in the dialect speech of black second grade children of low socioeconomic background in New York City public schools. Specifically, the…

This paper presents a comparative study of English and Vietnamese syntax. Four basic patterns are said to make up the majority of English sentences: statements (both affirmative and negative), questions (both affirmative and negative), requests, and commands. The composition of each English pattern is discussed with examples, and compared directly…

This paper examines language in a factory setting and focuses on: (1) language workers use to express attitudes toward work areas, jobs and workers associated with them (Hymes, 1974); (2) behavior workers exhibit in relation to their socially defined status (Fishman 1970; Tyler 1971); and (3) speech forms workers use for particular situations and…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of varying the semantic content of active and passive sentences along a dimension of "personalness" on the comprehension of those sentences by preschool age children. The study focuses on a current linguistic controversy dealing with the relative adequacy of syntax-based and…

In this paper, an attempt is made to explicate the notion "equivalence" in contrastive analysis. It has been suggested that a learner formulates successive hypotheses about the nature of the target language at least partially on the basis of his knowledge of the native language. A deep contrastive study of the two language systems will…

Papers dealing with syntactic evidence in various languages for a higher performative sentence containing information about speaker, addressee and the speech act involved are reviewed and discussed. Arguments for this analysis have the form of showing that overt sentences behave in some way as if they were subordinate to a higher sentence…

In the first part of the paper the idea of the cognitive network is developed. The network consists of concepts linked together by relationships which are themselves concepts. Concepts are learned according to simple rules, and the network grows as new concepts are learned. Part II considers the growth and structure of language. The growth of…

This paper examines the various syntactic and semantic functions of the "ada" verb of "being" in Malay. The claim is made that there is an abstract uppermost "ada" in the underlying structure of Malay sentences that asserts or denies the truth of the surface main clause. A further claim is made that the…

Presented is support for the existence of "Deaf English," a non-standard dialect common to the prelingually deaf; and reported is an investigation of the written English competence of deaf adolescents. In the first half of the document the author discusses the historical background of deaf education and the linguistic and cognitive abilities of…

Five orders of approximation to normal English prose were constructed; 5th, 10th, 25th, 50th, and 100th plus. Five cloze tests were then constructed by inserting blanks for deleted words in 5 word segments (5th order), 10 word segments (10th), 25 word segments (25th), 50 word segments (50th), and 100 word segments of five different passages of…

This paper argues that every language carries its own denotative, connotative, evaluative, and emotional implications. The impact of these aspects of language on a multilingual's use of languages is examined. Particular reference is made to connotative meanings of words; reference to the second person; the meaning of the term "multilingual";…

This paper examines the status of surface structure in transformational grammar, and the way that surface structure mediates the contacts between the phonological and semantic components of the grammar. Surface structure refers not to a single but to at least four distinct notions that do not necessarily define a homogeneous level of…