This paper reviews current literature concerning the development of children's comprehension of the processes of natural languages and it recommends a new study approach designed to evaluate the joint effects of lexical and syntactic devices on comprehension. It discusses three main kinds of investigations--studies of the comprehension of…

Project 3 of the GUME research project on foreign language teaching methods, in line with Projects 1 and 2, questions whether the best effect in language teaching is achieved solely by intensive drilling of the structure in question (the implicit method) or if grammatical explanations further the assimilation of the patterns so that, within the…

A Language-research experiment designed to examine the linguistic competence of bilingual Italian-American children demonstrates that structures shared by Italian and English are acquired in approximately the same order and at the same rate, and that the sequencing of specific structures reflects linguistic complexity. Structures appearing in both…

The reading instruction experiment described in this report is based on the theory that, if a child learns to talk without formal instruction solely by being exposed to language and if written language is to be considered as an independent system, a child could learn to read at the same age and in the same way as he is learning to talk, solely by…

This book provides a discussion of rhetoric and its importance in second language learning in general, with specific remarks on problems in teaching English as a second language. Logic (not in the strictest philosophical sense), the basic rhetoric, is evolved out of a culture; it is not universal. Rhetoric is not universal either. Rhetorical…

This document discusses three educational experiments currently in progress within the Applied Language Research Center. Each of the programs concerns problems relating to teaching Spanish-speaking pupils in a public school setting. The Grade One Experimental Project is designed to determine if instruction in Spanish at the primary level (in an…

Papers in these volumes were presented at a Mexican conference on linguistics. Most papers are in Spanish; the English translations of the titles include the following: "Directions in Contemporary Semantics" (L. Lara); "Regular Accentuation in Spanish" (C. Braithwaite); "Syntactic Order in Sonoran" (D. Brown); "Speech Datives or Interest/Not of…

This collection of articles on second language learning includes: "Action, langage et discours. Les fondements d'une psychologie du langage" ("Action, Language, and Discourse. Foundations of a Psychology of Language") (Jean-Paul Bronckart); "Contextes socio-culturels et appropriation des languages secondes: l'apprentissage en milieu social et la…

This collection of articles on second language learning in a multilingual environment includes: "Franzosisch-Deutsch: Zweisprachiges Lernen au der Sekundarstufe 1" (French-German: Learning Two Languages at Secondary School, Level 1) (Otto Stern, Brigit Eriksson, Christine Le Pape, Hans Reutener, Cecilia Serra Oesch); "Das Projekt…

This book lists sources of information on the Internet that may be useful in English language teaching (ELT) and the study of linguistics and communication. Two introductory chapters provide information on using the reference effectively and on the using the online resources it lists for graduate study, including graduate information needs and the…

This study examined the effects of social class background on children's oral language development. The study focused on children's oral vocabulary knowledge because such knowledge provides a good summary of language skills, is easily measured, and is very consequential for later schooling success. Using a large national data set, the study…

This collection of papers falls into three categories: stylistics, discourse analysis, and language pedagogy. The papers are: "Feedback on Writing: Attitudes and Uptake" (Kenneth Anderson, Cathy Benson, and Tony Lynch); "An Alternative View of 'Like': Its Grammaticalisation in Conversational American English and Beyond" (Isabelle Buchstaller);…

This issue includes the following articles: "On Negative Alternative Questions" (Chung-hye Han); "A Categorical Syntax for Verbs of Perception" (Robin Clark, Gerhard Jager); "Defective Complements in Tree Adjoining Grammar" (Seth Kulick, Robert Frank, K. Vijayshanker); "The Convergence of Lexicalist Perspectives…

Reviews recent research in multilingualism in Southern Africa, focusing on the role of languages in education, sociolinguistics, and language policy. Much of the research is on South Africa. Topics discussed include language of instruction in schools, teacher education, higher education, adult literacy, language contact, gender and linguistic…

Argues that the theoretical consensus on second language learning, which focuses on instruction in the target language, contradicts the main premises used by bilingual education advocates to gain respectability for bilingual education programs. The roles of translation, transfer, input, and interaction in the Eastman model of bilingual education,…