This investigation attempts a didactic analysis of Arnold Wesker's Trilogy for teaching in the 12th or 13th grade of a Modern Language Gymnasium. Here the main emphasis is said to bear on an anlysis of the relation of language and structure of the Trilogy to Wesker's conception of history as revealed in this work, as well as upon an analysis of…

Language is both a reflection of the status quo and a factor in perpetuating the status quo. People use language to encode their own experiences; memories are the encoded versions of reality. People learn how to characterize their experience by seeing how others characterize their own and others' experiences. When asked to talk about successful…

A study investigated the relationship between readability of advertising copy and conventional measures of ad readership. It was hypothesized that readership scores would be higher for advertisements containing copy with the highest and lowest computed readership grade levels. Fifty-five full-page advertisements that met arbitrary minimal copy…

Students readily pick up occupational jargon from their special interests and studies. Nevertheless, the education and culture of teachers of communication typically have stressed the outright rejection of jargon of all kinds in the interests of honesty, directness, clarity, and economy of statement. Supporting the teachers ideologically are the…

At certain points in their historical development, languages are not adequately equipped to serve their societies and do not offer certain communicative functions. Political and cultural domination can influence the language community to adopt a foreign language for higher communication, leaving the vernacular underdeveloped for those…

An analysis of non-Arabic words used in two Kuwaiti daily newspapers reveals that (1) the newspapers often use loan words instead of their Arabic equivalents to emphasize that they are discussing something European; (2) the number and frequency of loan words relating to objects of daily use are much greater than those of abstract and technical…

Little is known about the transition from the use of Latin to the use of German in scientific literature. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Latin texts by Albrecht Durer and Johannes Kepler were bestsellers while the German versions were unpopular. German mathematics became acceptable only after 1700, with the work of Christian Wolff.…

Detailing the false starts, uncertainty, and internal questioning that occur as companies organize and manage language simplification projects, the 12 case studies contained in the two sections of this book reveal how some business organizations have benefited by simplifying consumer documents. Descriptions of each case contain information on the…

Controversial claims made about characteristics of "women's speech" are examined in a comparison of certain aspects of the language used by 17 ten-year-olds (9 boys and 8 girls) and 20 adults (10 men and 10 women, mean age 20.0 years), all native speakers of English. The subjects were asked to pretend to speak on the telephone to a person of…

Noting that one way to tap into organizational life involves examining the symbolic discourse occurring in the context, a study examined stories and metaphors, forms of symbolic discourse, in two Christian denominations in Southern Appalachia. Transcriptions from audiotapes of sermons and lay talks (e.g., Sunday School lessons) from Church of God…

Four different kinds of story were presented to children aged 4,7, and 10 years and to adults. In the stories, the relationship between basic-level referents mentioned in the first part of the story and the related superordinates mentioned in the second part was changed by means of different kinds of articles introducing the superordinates:…

Use of communication theory in an analysis of the court proceedings of the Jean Harris murder trial suggests that Harris contributed to her conviction with her inconsistent use of language and her refusal to remain in low-profile. Harris' defense attorney attempted to portray her as an upstanding, well-bred member of the community, and as a…

The Japanese sentence-final particle "no" is analyzed as a marker of evidentiality, signaling that the speaker shares a commitment to the knowledge in question with a group of which he is part. In contrast, bare verb forms (BVs) (i.e., the absence of "no") indicate that the speaker, as an individual, is committed to the…

A collection of articles on the kinds of variation in English that one finds within the language of one group or one person includes: "The English Language as Rule-Governed Behavior" (Timothy Shopen); "The English Language as Use-Governed Behavior" (Joseph M. Williams); "Styles" (Ann D. Zwicky); "The Organization…

Features are discussed that are critical to the comprehension of texts and that readability formulas cannot handle. The critique and alternative analyses are confined to public and institutional documents and are based on research in cognitive psychology and psycholinguistics. Two types of comprehensibility complications are examined, those…