Tinkering with the language inhibits the meeting of minds. (Editor)

Author focuses on need to teach language classifications and meanings as well as the conventional skills of reading and writing. (MB)

Author presents data on Washoe, a chimpanzee taught American Sign Language; he concludes that this represents true language learning. (SP)

Gleason uses a prose form that is a written analog to Davis' new music. This prose form may be called surrealistic writing." An analysis of the prose style follows. (Author/SP)

Discusses the "dehydrated manner of producing writing which is fostered by English teachers' evaluation standards; prompted by an examination of a research report, "The Analysis of Essays by Computer (University of Connecticut, Storrs). (Author/SW)

Six experiments investigated whether the pronoun "he," when used generically, may lead individuals to think more often of male referents. While no support was found for a pure pronoun effect, some evidence was found for a masculine bias when the word "man" was combined with "he." (Author/MJL)

Reviewed are the relevance and limitations of work in sociolinguistics, pragmatics, and conversational analysis with respect to a central issue in the sociological study of social interaction: the taken-for-granted and inferences made therefrom. The hope is to show the arbitrariness of the line dividing microsociological studies and…

Describes a study that examines the pragmatic language functions used by school-age children during a structured dialog consisting of a question-answer paradigm. Develops a 10-category taxonomy to classify subjects' responses and finds the taxonomy to be effective in two ways: (1) the number of categories is sufficient, and (2) the interscorer…

Concludes that audiences tend to evaluate a radio newscast more positively and to perceive it as more immediate when it contains words that suggest timeliness. (FL)

The Black English semi-auxiliary "come" is used to express speaker indignation, as opposed to the motion verb "come." Examines the history of the semi-auxiliary and why it has remained undetected for so long. (EKN)

Discusses the benefits of short answers and how they differ in German and English. Provides hints on how to teach students to produce reduced answers that are grammatically acceptable in spoken German. (EKN)