The document contains summaries of recently completed, current, or projected research from Gallaudet College on the social and cultural aspects of deafness, language and communication, and educational research. Among the issues addressed by the research are the following: deafness in media, relationship between deaf students and their parents in…

This paper, part of a larger study, focuses on a single linguistic device, the "machine-gun question," which was used by three of six participants in a Thanksgiving dinner conversation. This conversational device is characteristic of a style that seems to grow out of the need to have others approve of one's wants. It is a style…

The elicited speech of 26 Turkish children ranging in age from 2;0 to 4;6 was examined with respect to causality. The developmental sequence of the acquisition of causal connectives showed a progression from the use of no explicit connectives to the acquisition of connectives that are context-dependent. The next stage in this progression was the…

The speech of each of eight children aged 15 to 24 months was monitored in an informal setting and analyzed for the imitation of nonsense words introduced by the experimenter. In a second session, objects were introduced as referents for the nonsense words. Results failed to support the two initial hypotheses, namely that children imitate in part…

Some results are reported of an investigation into the meanings of the English modal auxiliary verbs. The corpus consisted of the one million word Brown University corpus of American English and a matching Lancaster University corpus of British English. The three factors operative in the study were: (1) contextual features, that is, co-occurring…

This paper discusses the present state of the art in neurolinguistic studies of bilingualism and delineates areas of further research. The most pertinent studies are reviewed historically. The paper then focuses on some fundamental concepts, such as a definition of bilingualism, interference, recovery process, specific localization, and synchronic…

This study focuses on meaning differentiation among different causative expressions. Semantic differences between lexical and periphrastic expressions are reviewed. A picture comprehension task was administered to 32 adults and 99 children between the ages of 32 and 70 months. The children were asked to select the picture that matched a sentence…

The "natural" acquisition of a second language is compared to learning from instruction, including aspects of learning such as sequence of items learned (e.g., syntactic) for both children and adults. It is concluded that suggestions offered hitherto for applying findings from research in natural acquisition to the field of foreign language…

During the past ten years, research on second language acquisition (SLA) has expanded; at the same time, different models and hypotheses have been proposed to explain and account for the processes underlying SLA. Four models seem to be dominant at the present time: (1) the monitor model, which distinguishes between implicit or unconscious language…

This issue of the "SLANT" Newsletter for researchers in second language acquisition is highlighted by a survey on research in Canada by Fred Genesee (including a bibliography and reports of research in progress), and a report on "Second Language Acquisition in the Middle East," by Gregory James. The latter article discusses…

Two possible explanations based on elementary facts of physics are suggested for the universal preference for place of articulation of implosives and ejectives. Languages show a preference for ejectives in the order: velar, alveolar, and labial while implosives occur most often in the opposite order. A language will only have velar implosives if…

Limitations of linguistic theories of translation are outlined and an argument is presented for the inclusion of an evaluation component in a comprehensive theory of translation. The tasks which a linguistic theory of translation sets for itself are formulated since these provide an ad hoc set of criteria for testing the adequacy of the various…

Field researchers of sign language are the target of this methodological guide. The prospective researcher is briefed on the rationale of sign language study as language study and as distinct from the study of kinesics. Subjects covered include problems of translating, use of interpreters, and ethics. Instruments for obtaining social and language…

THIS TRANSLATION FROM THE RUSSIAN IS THE FIRST FULL-LENGTH GRAMMAR OF OSSETIC TO BE PUBLISHED IN A WESTERN LANGUAGE SINCE 1903. THE PRESENT WORK IS ACTUALLY A COMPOSITE OF TWO WORKS BY MR. ABAEV WHICH APPEARED IN 1952 AND 1959 AND WERE TRANSLATED AND EDITED BY GABOR HORVATH, STEVEN P. HILL, AND HERBERT H. PAPER AS ONE OF A SERIES OF TRANSLATIONS…

THIS HANDBOOK WAS PREPARED BY THE CENTER FOR APPLIED LINGUISTICS TO SERVE AS A GUIDE FOR THOSE ATTENDING THE FORTY-SECOND ANNUAL MEETING OF THE LINGUISTIC SOCIETY OF AMERICA, AS WELL AS TO PROVIDE A PERMANENT RECORD OF THE PAPERS PRESENTED AT THE MEETING. THERE ARE THREE PARTS TO THE HANDBOOK--(1) THE OFFICIAL PROGRAM OF THE MEETING, (2) AUTHORS'…