An approach to written composition built upon knowledge of the linguistic environments of inner-city blacks is described.

A writer and educator with an obsession for writing and a concern with the teaching of writing demonstrates how all writing, in many different ways, is autobiographical and that autobiography grows from a few deep taproots that are set down into the past in childhood. Autobiography (described as the way an individual makes meaning out of his or…

Intended for administrators and policymakers as well as teachers, this digest examines the current state of the plain English movement, which is an effort to persuade government agencies, businesses, and professional organizations to write in clear, understandable English. After enumerating the benefits that the use of plain English can generate…

As part of a larger sociolinguistic study investigating the attitudes of Puerto Ricans on the island toward their own vernacular speech, the present research focused on the subjective reactions of 104 public high school teachers and students to spoken speech styles. The subjects' task was to: listen to a prerecorded tape, rate the voices on the…

A study of differences in linguistic behavior between men and women in Amman, Jordan, used a random sample of 150 individuals as subjects. Distribution of lexical items was examined for variation correlating lexical choice with sex of the speaker, and phonological variable standardization and the manner in which choice of variant is conditioned by…

This paper examines the results of two sociolinguistic studies of the Arabic spoken by men and women in Jordan and Syria in terms of sex differentiation in Arabic. The study reported in this paper proposes that the terms "prestigious" and "standard" should not be used interchangeably; accordingly, it reinterprets the previous…

Recognizing that writing is perhaps more crucial to law than to any profession, the Southwestern University School of Law began an interdisciplinary writing program in 1979. The legal communication skills course is a mandatory part of the first-year curriculum, continuing for two semesters and awarding three unit credits. The course strives to…

German business correspondence is an essential part of a business German course because of the difficulties involved in using the required language style and because it is integral to business practice in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. A recently published text by W. Schmitz and D. Scheiner of the Goethe Institute is reviewed and found to be…

Advancement of students' abilities to cope with the demands of exposition and argument is noted when they are encouraged to accept mixed diction within a framework of activities that interrelate thinking, speaking, reading, writing, and listening, in the context of the immediate audience of class and teacher. Research indicates that when a weak…

Six casual conversations between university undergraduates were tape recorded and transcribed in an effort to describe the politeness practices of men and women during ordinary conversation. The first stage of analysis involved dividing the transcripts into utterances or units of speech actions. The second stage of analysis involved coding each…

Accurate communication of empathy by a counselor may facilitate client self-exploration which, in turn, is necessary for positive outcome. To study the effects of counselor empathic response on client self-exploration, two doctoral level counseling psychology students had one 45-minute interview with each of two college student clients. Counselors…

This selective review of literature presents research and theory in support of the proposition that language is an essential component of early artistic development, and is crucial to the nature and nurture of visual expression. Young children frequently accompany drawing activities with descriptive, reflective, and social conversation, verbally…

Three questions in the application of native-language sociolinguistic theories to second language contexts are addressed: (1) Is transfer always a psycholinguistic process of interlingual overgeneralization? (2) Does attention to speech underlie all style shifting? (3) Is H. Giles' Speech Accommodation Theory adequate to explain all purposeful…

This paper focuses on an important aspect of second language acquisition, namely, the complex set of modifications in the rules governing the forms and functions of the new language that are required by specific sociocultural contexts. These adjustments in language, or shifts in register, play a crucial role in interpreting utterances for social…

Foreigner talk (FT) has been characterized as speech "used by speakers of a language to outsiders who are felt to have limited command of a language or no knowledge of it," or "the variety of language that is regarded by a speech community as primarily appropriate for addressing foreigners." A study was carried out in Germany…