This study examined the degree to which readers' affective responses to levels of language usage reflect their attitudes toward language usage. The subjects, 51 college juniors and seniors, read nine simulated newspaper interviews and completed five semantic differential scales that indicated their impressions of the interviewee's personality and…

The eight articles in this journal issue deal with the classroom study of language. They address such topics as dealing with student dialects and teaching about dialects; creating environments in which "languaging" can take place; using stylistic analysis to explain a literary text; teaching high school students to write research papers on aspects…

This paper proposes a study of the writing performance of superior twelfth graders and college English majors in three types of discourse: expressive, explanatory, and persuasive. The primary purpose of the study is descriptive, though the results of the descriptive analysis will permit a comparison of twelfth graders' writing with college…

A study was conducted to examine children's ability to deal with a particular form of figurative language, the simile, and the changes occurring in this ability as a result of regular, planned exposure to the form. Before and after an eight-week reading tutorial program, 17 children in the experimental group and 10 children in the control group…

Children's speech styles vary considerably, ranging along a continuum from formal to informal, in the various educational and social settings they encounter in school. Teachers who see their role as preparing children to fill social roles will be aware of the speech styles that children use and will accept varying speech styles as appropriate to…

There are several things that English teachers at all educational levels need to know about linguistics. They must know, for example, that the terms "grammar,""dialect," and "register" have special meanings for the linguist. In addition, they must know the following: (1) regardless of language, a normal child will…

The word frequency lists presented in this publication were compiled to create a database for further research into vocabulary use, especially the variation in vocabulary due to differences in situation and social group membership. Taken from the natural conversations of 40 target children (four and a half to five years old) with their families,…

This paper considers a distinction frequently used in sociolinguistics and ethnography of speaking to describe speech events: their formality or informality. Three principle meanings of "formality" found in the literature concern whether the formality relates to properties of a communicative code, properties of the social setting in…

The relationship between teachers' expectations of students' communicative competence in the classroom and certain aspects of teachers' language during interaction with students was investigated in a study involving 55 nursery school and primary school children and their seven female teachers. The teacher expectation model used in the study…

A "generative stylistics" approach to writing presents usable, conscious standards for the production, arrangement, and rearrangement of written discourse thereby teaching students how to make appropriate decisions about language usage. Based on research studies that indicate the dependence of the writing process on the decision making…

The reading difficulty that black children encounter is not a result of language differences but rather a consequence of living in a society where people are socialized to view blacks as inferior and less able. Teachers are not immune to these attitudes. In addition to societal views, teachers are also influenced by social science research which…

This paper reviews relevant experimental literature on certain components of printed instructional materials which are commonly used in early childhood education for normal, at-risk, and handicapped children. The components examined include the use of color, instances of concepts, language style, number of answer options, the use of pictures and…

A study sought to determine what relationships existed between speech rate, speech pitch variation, speech loudness, and the personality assessments made by listeners. The subjects, 214 undergraduate speech communication students, listened to one of eight tape recordings made by a male speaker to represent all the combinations of the three…

The reading habits by which students formulate a critical analysis of a literary work should focus attention on the choices that a writer makes when putting words on paper. These choices include sound, diction, language, imagery, organization, metaphors, sentence structure, transitions, allusions, and patterns. Discussing these choices does not…

THIS MANUAL DESCRIBES MEASURES USED IN "THE COGNITIVE ENVIRONMENTS OF URBAN PRE-SCHOOL CHILDREN" PROJECT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO. THE SAMPLE FOR THE STUDY CONSISTED OF 163 NEGRO MOTHER-CHILD PAIRS SELECTED FROM 3 SOCIOECONOMIC CLASSES BASED ON THE FATHER'S OCCUPATION AND THE PARENTS' EDUCATION. A FOURTH GROUP INCLUDED FATHER-ABSENT…