Grammar is not a four-letter word. Learning vocabulary is not a form of punishment. They are the basis of any language, and a student who wants more than a tourist's booklet of useful phrases will need to learn them sooner or later. The second edition of this popular little book takes the sting out of the exercise and even makes it a pleasant…

There has been a call for approaches that connect science learning with literacy, yet the use of, and research on, children's literature information books in science instruction has been quite limited. Because the discipline of science involves distinctive generic linguistic registers, what information books should be integrated in science…

This study examined the relationship between characteristics of mothers' talk about future events and young children's ability to contribute to naturalistic conversations about future events. Results indicated that three maternal style factors were related to 2.5- and 4-year-olds' contributions: elaborative/advanced language, general and past…

This study explores the question of whether native and nonnative listeners, some familiar with the language and some not, differ in their accent ratings of native speakers (NSs) and nonnative speakers (NNSs). Although a few studies have employed native and nonnative judges to evaluate native and nonnative speech, the present study is perhaps the…

Parent-child "everyday" conversations have been suggested as a source of children's early science learning. If such conversations are important, then it would be pertinent to know whether children from different family backgrounds have different experiences talking about science in informal settings. We focus on the relation between…

This paper describes how slang is not necessarily short-lived and novel. Users perceive these words, phrases, and meanings as new and they function as new, however, their novelty is only apparent rather than real. Data examined were gathered by students from fellow students at Michigan State University. Sources for comparison included the…

To explore the concept of lexical collocation, or relationships between words, a study was conducted based on three assumptions: (1) that a text structure for a unit of discourse was analogous to that existing at the level of the sentence, (2) that such a text form could be discovered if a large enough sample of generically similar texts was…

The concept of register refers to variations in language determined by function, medium and formality or style. An examination of the registers of verb forms and noun phrases yielded results important to the writer of English language courses. (CK)

Eighteen issues are outlined concerning theory and measurement of attitude, and language attitude in particular, and research motivated by these issues described. (RM)

A study of the extent to which the sequence-of-tenses rule (STR) is used in television news reporting in the United States is presented. The study examines which tenses are shifted most frequently and explains the uses and functions of tense variation. It is argued that STR is not always a semantically and pragmatically unmarked form as proposed…

Efforts to simplify language used in consumer documents come from the consumer movement and a public disillusioned with big business and government. Even before President Carter's 1978 executive order mandating simplification in government regulations, some agencies were revising regulations for clarity. However, these efforts were based on too…

Three colloquium papers are presented on two fields of linguistics, dialogism (the study of dialogue content) and polyphony (the representation of different sounds by the same letter or symbol). The first paper, by J. Moeschler, examines dialogism, dialogue, and polyphony from the perspective of the pragmatics of the utterance and the pragmatics…

Research on Spanish/English code switching is reviewed and the definitions and categories set up by the investigators are examined. Their methods of locating, limiting, and classifying true code switches, and the terms used and results obtained, are compared. It is found that in these studies, conversational (intra-discourse) code switching is…

Verbal productivity and lack of self-disclosure about feelings by counselor trainees may indicate resistance in a supervision session. In order to investigate resistance as it relates to trainees' statements, 20 supervisors viewed and rated a 15-minute videotape of a simulated supervisory session, in which the trainee was instructed to exhibit…

Previous research on the effects of counselor language on clients' perception of the counselor's social influence indicated that counselors using complex language were seen as more expert. Seventy-eight undergraduate and graduate counselor trainees participated in a study to replicate these earlier findings by investigating the effects of…