This paper considers a distinction frequently used in sociolinguistics and ethnography of speaking to describe speech events: their formality or informality. Three principle meanings of "formality" found in the literature concern whether the formality relates to properties of a communicative code, properties of the social setting in…

The work described in this paper was undertaken to study children's ability to preserve semantic relations during analogical mappings. Two experiments are described based on the understanding that metaphors and analogies are mappings from one semantic region (the domain of origin) to another (the range of application), which convey the idea that…

A "generative stylistics" approach to writing presents usable, conscious standards for the production, arrangement, and rearrangement of written discourse thereby teaching students how to make appropriate decisions about language usage. Based on research studies that indicate the dependence of the writing process on the decision making…

This multiple case study investigated the relationship between kindergarten teachers' questions and children's responses. The classroom discussions of 4 groups of children and their teachers (all middle income level) were taped and classified into five different question and response categories. Results indicated that: (1) some teachers ask more…

A study sought to determine what relationships existed between speech rate, speech pitch variation, speech loudness, and the personality assessments made by listeners. The subjects, 214 undergraduate speech communication students, listened to one of eight tape recordings made by a male speaker to represent all the combinations of the three…

The crib talk reported here of a 2;2-2;4-year-old boy replicates the phenomenon of crib talk reported in previous studies by other investigators. This study adds a corpus of mother-child interaction (MCI) and tests one aspect of the hypothesis that crib talk may enhance production of linguistic forms at a later date. Transcripts of monologues were…

"AT HOME AND AT SCHOOL" IS THE FIRST OF A SIX-VOLUME ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE SERIES DESIGNED PRIMARILY FOR INTERMEDIATE AND SECONDARY OR HIGH SCHOOL LEVEL STUDENTS OVERSEAS (E.G., FOR STUDENTS AGE 10 YEARS AND OLDER). THE MATERIAL AND PRESENTATION ARE STRUCTURALLY CONTROLLED AND GRADED, WITH EMPHASIS IN THIS VOLUME ON PATTERN PRACTICE. BASIC…

SEX DIFFERENCES IN READING ACHIEVEMENT RESULTING FROM USE OF TWO DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO TEACHING READING IN THE FIRST GRADE WERE STUDIED. A STANDARD BASAL READER APPROACH WAS USED WITH READING GROUPS DIVIDED BY SEX AS WELL AS ABILITY. PACE AND EMPHASIS OF INSTRUCTION FOR THE BOYS WAS ADAPTED TO SUIT THEIR NEEDS. A LINGUISTIC APPROACH ORGANIZED TO…

Language studies examining the language-thought relationship are important as are those that study other psychological factors concerned with the storage of knowledge. Since language is a product of the social process, it is important to consider that the meaning intended by the sender of the message (author) may not be the meaning decoded by the…

Reading success is closely related to paradigmatic and syntagmatic language responses. It is believed that a child who makes paradigmatic associations communicates and thinks in the language of the teacher while a child who makes syntagmatic responses is hampered in the learning situation. To determine how good (normal) and poor (retarded) readers…

These papers deal with a variety of topics bearing on modality in a variety of languages and language families. While all languages have ways of expressing modality, that is, such notions as possibility, necessity, and contingency, this phenomenon has been the object of little systematic linguistic analysis. These papers are presented with the…

An experiment on relative clause formation involving Cantonese students who were learning English was conducted. The study sought to determine whether sentence combining exercises would help Chinese students construct long relative clauses instead of the short relative clauses that exist in their first language. For the experimental group each…

The papers in this volume represent revised versions of presentations made at the First Workshop on Yuman Languages held at the University of California, San Diego, June 17-21, 1975. The focus was on the area of syntax, where the least amount of published information had previously been available. Papers presented were: "Syntactic Diversity…

This observational study examined code switching, the alternation of language or dialects to convey social meaning, in 6-year-old Spanish-English bilinguals. Specifically, the study attempted to determine which of the five variables were associated with code switches: physical setting; type of activity; characteristics of the addressee (age,…

The liberty of deviation from the dominant word order in Esperanto and the natural languages is considered. Greenberg's classification of the languages according to four criteria, the liberty of word order in Sanskrit, and the norm of grammaticality in a constructed language are considered. Objection is made to St. Clair's argument that word order…