The techniques used to collect data on the dominant speech patterns and verbal expressions of elementary school children are described as a means of systematizing oral language instruction. Specific recurring errors discovered in children's communication are discussed: the failure to focus on a major point, to support ideas, and to clarify…

When teaching English as a second language to speakers of Punjabi, it is useful for the teacher to have some knowledge of the students' native language. This paper analyzes the differences in word order between English and Punjabi. The five basic sentence patterns in English are contrasted with the equivalent sentence patterns in Punjabi.…

This study proposes that avoidance of a structure by a second language learner can only be claimed for instances where it can be demonstrated that the learner "knows" the avoided language form and that native speakers are expected to use a particular form in that context. Research is reviewed, particularly a study by J. Schachter (1974) in which…

Two sentence-combining tests and one piece of free writing per student provided the data in a study designed to determine whether the heavy writing emphasis given British children in their elementary years gives them significantly greater writing skill than their counterparts in the United States, who write comparatively infrequently. The data…

By age two, a child begins to form complex sentences by joining two or more sentences or by embedding one sentence into another. Formation of conjoined structures is a simpler process and emerges earlier than that of embedding structures. This paper attempts to answer the following questions: (1) Do children produce or understand embedding…

This investigation was designed to examine the acquisition of a set of complex English structures by Egyptian Arabic-speaking adult learners at different levels of proficiency. Two studies were conducted using the methodology of Chomsky as adapted by d'Anglejan and Tucker. In addition, some subjects were asked to translate a number of stimulus…

This study was based on a modification and extension of Greene's (1969) test wherein children choose structurally-transformed sentences which are synonymous with key sentences, thereby indicating recognition of the transformational relationships involved and internalization of those transformations. A similar test was devised to investigate the…

This report presents a contrastive analysis of the phonological and grammatical systems of English and Polish. The analysis is intended as a resource in teaching Polish to speakers of English. Consequently, areas of special difficulty for the English-speaking learner are stressed: the phonology of segmental phonemes, the morphology of nouns, noun…

A distinction should be made between linguistics as a science and applied linguistics as a technology, the latter being of great potential for language classroom problem solving, the former to be saved for later, more mature study. The English teacher's main concern in language study is to impart to students the effective use of language (i.e.,…

This contrastive grammar based on modern linguistic theory considers noun and verb phrases as the primary morphological and syntactical structure of language. A section on the noun phrase examines: (1) types of noun phrase constructions; (2) gender and number; (3) elements, expansion, and substitutes of the noun phrase. The material on the verb…

This manual describes and illustrates the writing system of modern Persian. It is modelled after Frank A. Rice's "Classical Arabic: The Writing System." Five sections concerning the writing system are provided: (1) printed Persian, (2) typewritten Persian, (3) handwritten Persian, (4) the combination of words, and (5) punctuation. (RL)

This learning module is designed to provide the prospective teacher of English as second language with a contrastive overview of the syntactic structures of Spanish and English and to enable him to: (a) state the English language patterns that are difficult for a Puerto Rican Spanish-speaker, (b) explain the specific causes for indications of…

This paper examines the validity of the concept of linguistic units in a theory of speech production. Substantiating data are drawn from the study of the speech production process itself. Secondarily, an attempt is made to reconcile the postulation of linguistic units in speech production theory with their apparent absence in the speech signal.…

This volume, the first in a series of four on the languages of Nepal, contains the following papers: "Toward the Systematization of Display Grammar,""Clause Patterns in Kham,""Tentative Systemic Organization of Nepali Sentences,""Maithili Sentences,""Notation for Simultaneous Representation of…

After an extensive transformational consideration of the shift of indirect objects with "to" and "for," the authors introduce a theory of perceptual strategy which could be used to supplement transformational theory. According to a concept of perceptual strategy constraints on susceptibility, the strategy for interpreting a sentence involves…