An understanding of the structure and function of discourse in social communication and in its internal representation to the individuals is sought in this multidisciplinary collection of papers. The approaches are divided into theoretical orientations and empirical orientations. The theoretical papers deal with: (1) comprehension in conversation,…

PART OF A LARGER STUDY OF THE COGNITIVE ENVIRONMENTS OF PRESCHOOL CHILDREN, THIS EXPERIMENT EXAMINED THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN MOTHERS' LANGUAGE STYLES AND THE CONCEPT ATTAINMENT OF THEIR PRESCHOOL CHILDREN. SPEECH SAMPLES WERE OBTAINED FROM 160 URBAN NEGRO MOTHERS OF FOUR SOCIOECONOMIC GROUPS (MIDDLE-CLASS, UPPER-LOWER, LOWER-LOWER, AND…

Twenty English-Japanese bilingual subjects were given the following reading tasks: timed, silent reading of passages in English and Japanese followed by comprehension tests and recognition of tachistoscopic presentations of twenty words in each language. The amount of reading the subjects had done in English and Japanese was assessed in an…

Methods of assessing children's oral language ability are explored in this paper. Following a discussion of problems involved in the formal assessment of oral language ability, a study is described that revealed that the evaluation of the oral language of 12 kindergarten children in the social context of the natural classroom environment,…

A knowledge of areas of difficulty as well as their underlying causes is necessary before instructional materials, teaching techniques, and evaluation methods in foreign language instruction can be organized. This research describes three methods of analyzing the problems in foreign language learning and suggests their complementary role in…

This book reports on research in the area of address patterns, such as titles, last or first names, and the formal and informal pronouns used in many languages. The research was inspired by two distinct issues: (1) what is actually intended by a "sender" when he makes a particular choice of address form, and (2) what is actually…

Yugoslav elementary school students of English as a second language were the subjects of a longitudinal study to determine factors influencing the acquisition of correct English pronunciation. The students were tested for their ability to articulate 32 sounds within ten specific English words. The test was administered each year from the second…

This study explores the role of the language learning situation by comparing the speech of children in an immersion program, children learning a second language in a natural setting, and native French children. Three groups of children participated in the study: (1) 39 children (Grades K, 1, 3, 5) in a French immersion program in the U.S.; (2) 13…

The views of proponents and opponents of the language deficit theory--the theory that nonstandard dialect is a deficient form of language--are presented in this paper. Following a description of the work of Basil Bernstein, a British educator who is considered the key figure among proponents of the theory, the paper presents an overview of the…

The factors that are involved in the choice of address to women as compared to men by speakers of American English were investigated in public interactions regarding provision of a service. In addition to proper names, there are two major types of address forms in general usage: the traditional respect forms, such as "ma'am" and "sir," and the…

The communication strategies of eight Spanish-speaking children enrolled in an elementary English as a second language (ESL) program in Austin, Texas were observed and analyzed. Strategies were found to be divisible into three categories: kinesic, paralinguistic, and linguistic. The linguistic strategies resulted in errors, but these are deemed…

The four reports in this volume cover several phases of a project to determine English language education needs of foreign doctors and medical staff working in hopsitals in the United Kingdom. Each paper deals with a set of data the consideration of which may be applied to curriculum development in English for special purposes for medical…

This pamphlet is the first in a series of ten stemming from the view that language is central to learning, that teachers can gain insights into their work and into learning by examining the language of the classroom, and that current language theory can be the means to such insights. The pamphlet contains a description of an informal study…

THIS TECHNICAL REPORT PRESENTS, IN SUBSTANCE, THE CONTENTS OF THE FIRST CHAPTER OF A BOOK IN PREPARATION DEALING WITH STANFORD UNIVERSITY EXPERIMENTS ON PARTICULAR ASPECTS OF THE LEARNING OF RUSSIAN BY AMERICANS WITH NO PREVIOUS EXPOSURE TO SLAVIC LANGUAGES. THE GENERAL AIM OF THE COMPLETED VOLUME WILL BE TO APPLY CERTAIN PRINCIPLES AND RESULTS OF…

TEACHER, STUDENT, AND CURRICULUM ARE ALL SUBJECT TO EXAMINATION IN THIS REPORT TO DETERMINE EACH ONE'S ROLE IN CREATING THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE UNDERACHIEVER, DEFINED AS A STUDENT WHOSE LANGUAGE GRADES DIFFER MARKEDLY FROM HIS OVERALL GRADE-POINT AVERAGE. THE IDEAL SETTING FOR THE INVESTIGATION WAS KING CITY, PSEUDONYM FOR THE ACTUAL CITY, WHERE…