Describes an assignment designed to dispel prospective English teachers' dichotomous ideas about language ("right" or "wrong"); gain a sense that more than one dialect could be accepted; and understand that the variations from the handbook rules ("errors") might even be rhetorically based. (TB)

Reports the findings of a study in which transfer of verb properties was investigated via syntactic data elicited from second language learners. The performance of Hindi-Urdu speakers on tests of English causatives was compared with that of Vietnamese speakers, because there are five significant differences between causativization patterns in…

Cognitive mechanisms that may account for the phenomena of whole-word phonology and phonological templates in children are described and strategies for identifying whole-word phonological patterns in normal and disordered phonologies are proposed. Intervention strategies that draw on these same mechanisms as a way to overcome their inappropriate…

Analysis of Chinese undergraduates' oral production of English lexical items they had already been exposed to found that factors affecting both placement and phonetic stress errors involved native language patterns, syllable structure, and the lexical item's position in the rhythmic sequence. (45 references) (CB)

Cross-cultural investigation of the influence of target-language in infant babbling analyzed 1047 vowels produced by 10-month-olds (N=20) from French, English, Cantonese, and Arabic language backgrounds. Results revealed differences among infants across language backgrounds, with the differences paralleling those found in adult speech in the…

Presents an account of observations, descriptions, and interpretations of children's representations. Offers examples of ways teachers and parents can help children expand their language, actions, and images to symbolize their experiences. (BB)

A study compared the writing productivity, syntactic maturity, vocabulary, and mechanics of 48 learning-disabled and 48 normally achieving students in grades 4, 8, and 11. Learning-disabled students' written products were shorter, contained fewer sentences with more words per sentence, included fewer long words, and had more spelling and…

A study of dialogue journal interaction between an instructor of both deaf and hearing community college students revealed that the instructor individualized journal responses according to individual students' language comprehension ability, motivation, learning style, and interests. (CB) (Adjunct ERIC Clearinghouse on Literacy Education)

Describes the different effects for four types of activities on students' pronunciation of targeted second-language (L2) vocabulary used in oral presentations. Samples of pronunciation were elicited at three points. The observed effects over time are presented graphically, and the complex learning processes underlying these effects are discussed.…

Controversy lingers regarding the name of the language spoken in the Spanish autonomous province of Valencia. Although the variety of Catalan spoken there has long been called both "Catalan" and "Valencian," recent controversy has become bitter and often surrounded by violence. Despite the debate, the language is in danger of…

Discusses the patterns of language usage in international families in which the native language of one parent is Japanese and the other English. Using data from several surveys of such families, this article analyzes patterns of language use between spouses, parents and children, and among siblings. Also discussed are the problems that…

Reports on data concerning language environments in classes with children who had been in the Home-School Study of Language and Literacy Development project when they were three and four years old. Activities and types of talk used in preschool classrooms changed as children grew older. (BB)

A context-based framework for teaching the history of Portuguese is presented. It incorporates passages from a medieval Galician-Portuguese work to illustrate diachronic linguistic processes in the evolution of the language. Advantages of the approach, prerequisites, text, and syllabus are described, and a sample analysis is provided. (53…

Investigates the effect of stimulation of fantasy play on the level of symbolic play, language, and cognitive ability of four-year olds in Guyanan nursery schools. Concludes that provision of opportunities for fantasy play can have positive effects on symbolic play and language. (Author/BB)

Utilizes a sample of 225 first graders and 246 seventh graders to examine the imagery developed in response to neutral words. Finds that the children developed sex-specific masculine imagery in response to neutral messages, with boys doing so more frequently than girls, but the seventh graders used more inclusive imagery than the first graders.…