Tested progressive assimilation violation in non-novel sequences using the palatal fricative [c]. Stimuli either violated fricative assimilation or did not. Violation also did not significantly inhibit spoken language processing. Results confirm that facilitation depends on the combination of progressive assimilation with novelty of the sequence.…

Investigation of data regarding the use of "so'n" in authentic German speech situations suggests that speakers used the form as a hedging expression indicating uncertainty or discomfort, enabling them to indicate their attitudes about various aspects of the speech situation. (21 references) (Author/CB)

Analysis of doctors' and patients' oral accounts and responses during medical interactions, from the perspective of an interactional strategy linking social structure to social interaction, demonstrates how the medical interview is characterized by a moment-to-moment battle that mirrors and largely sustains the institutional authority and status…

Explores data regarding the elision and epenthesis of the Spanish intervocalic /y/ and the underspecification of Spanish vowels and semivowels. Results lead to the proposal that such elision results from the Obligatory Contour Principle, operating on an autosegmental tier defining front vowels and /y/. (56 references) (CB)

Discusses the importance of the spoken word and the tradition of nursery verse and other forms of poetry. Encourages teachers and students to never abandon the rhythm, balance, and pleasurable taste of language as it was first learned through oral chants, jingles, and rhymes of early childhood. (MG)

Suggests that reading instruction, guided by a knowledgeable and sensitive teacher, is one means of complementing and facilitating oral language learning for the language-impaired child. Argues that the complex relationship between reading and oral language must be explored in depth. (RS)

A study investigated the effect of foreign accent and speaking rate on native English speaker comprehension. Three native Chinese speakers and one native speaker of American English read passages at different speaking rates. Comprehension scores showed that an increase in speaking rate and heavily accented English decreased listener comprehension.…

Study of how the verbal component of "babytalk" affected three-month-olds' (N=40) vocal qualities suggested that conversational turn-taking facilitated a speak-listen pattern of infant vocalizations and indicated that what adults "say" to infants influences what infants "say" in response. (Author/CB)

Examined variations in pitch dynamism in five male and five female speakers of French and English, finding that the pitch dynamism of the males and females was not significantly different in any of the conditions tested. (69 references) (MDM)

This article compares children's productions of wh-questions such as "who?" or "what?". Data were gathered using the technique of elicited production. (26 references) (JL)

Analysis of the effect of an authentic, unedited French radio program on student listening skills found that listening comprehension improved with increased exposure to authentic speech, suggesting that adjusting levels of speech speed, content, and form according to students' developing comprehension might not be essential to improving listening…

Two studies of the unintelligible speech of developmentally delayed children found that more intelligible child speech was found in routine than in nonroutine situations and that extracted utterances were more intelligible under context-information-present conditions. (35 references) (Author/CB)

S. Glucksberg and B. Keysar's (1990) class-inclusion view of metaphor understanding does not properly acknowledge metaphor's role in everyday cognition. Metaphor is a powerful scheme in long-term memory by which people make sense of their experiences. Evidence supports tacit conceptual metaphor's role in comprehension of verbal metaphors in…

Argues that Plato considers his philosophical doctrines unwritable and shows how this assumption can be mobilized as the dominant trope for interpreting Plato. Suggests that Platonic texts deploy language in dramatically rhetorical fashion to control the reader and lead her analogically to a vision of an extralinguistic reality. (RS)

Discusses such errors in transcribing real time in spoken discourse as inconsistent use of transcriptional conventions; use of transcriptional symbols with multiple meanings; measurement problems; some cross-purposes of real-time transcription; neglect of time between onset and offset of speech and silence transcription; and transcriptions that…