In view of the fact that the teaching of Standard English has high educational priority in American schools, and that its use as the medium of instruction makes it a vital skill for nonstandard speakers, the present paper reports on an investigation of the Standard English performance of young children from minority groups in which Standard…

This annotated bibliography provides information concerning audiovisual aids available for use in teaching and teacher training in language variation. A variety of topics are covered, including regional dialect studies, language change, language acquisition, social dialects, and language in education. Each entry includes the name of the product,…

A three-year study of the linguistic and metalinguistic performance of forty Mexican-American children ranging in age from three to eleven years shows that it is useful to characterize the competence of the bilingual in terms of a unified system of rules, at least at one level of analysis. This paper explores some aspects of the grammatical…

Classic studies in second language (L2) learning offer little evidence for the validity of the notion of universals in L2 learning. The present study investigates this notion in data collected from 15 observational studies of 40 L2 learners who acquired the L2 naturally, that is, they were not taught the language in any formal ways. Interpretation…

So far bilingual education has had only the most modest success in providing for children of limited English-speaking ability (LESAS) an educational opportunity equal to that of English-speaking children. In fact, to aim only at equality is self-defeating because it is impossible for a LESA child with a five-to-six year handicap ever to catch up…

This is a study of the processes involved in second language learning in which the principal subject was an Iranian child who learned English in the United States without formal instruction. Some of the questions dealt with in this study include: what motivates language learning in a child; what makes the linguistic structure of a language more or…

This report is one of a regular series on the status and progress of studies on the nature of speech, instrumentation for its investigation, and practical applications. Manuscripts and extended reports cover the following topics: iconic storage, voice-timing perception, oral anesthesia, laryngeal function, electromyography of speech production,…

An overview of Noam Chomsky's theories about transformational grammar and phonology is given. Since Chomsky was interested in characterizing what it is to know a language, the ways in which we demonstrate knowledge of our native language are discussed in detail. Particular emphasis is placed on describing how the transformational approach actually…

Few instruments have been developed for evaluation of expressive vocabulary in early childhood. This project attempted to develop an instrument sufficiently structured to call forth appropriate verbalization yet varied enough to elicit a wide range of responses, and to use the instrument to test whether socioeconomic class groupings can be…

These transcriptions of children living in a suburb of Paris represent and illustrate linguistic behavior and interests of the average nine-year-old French child. Seventy-nine children in groups of three were recorded in 30-minute periods of free conversation and 10-minute periods of play. Analysis reveals more than 30 centers of interest which…

The present level of understanding of the psycholinguistic processes and capacities underlying the child's acquisition of language is reviewed in this publication. In the first chapter, linguistic theories, biological characteristics of language learning, and the distinctions between language competence and language performance are discussed. The…

This is the first of five volumes of recorded, transcribed conversation of 150 Spanish children from Madrid. Some 25 hours of normal, unrehearsed conversation serve as a linguistic corpus illustrative of vocabulary development at a specific age level. Half-hour recording sessions were made in groups of three, consisting of boys or girls from the…

This is the second of five volumes of recorded, transcribed conversation of 150 Spanish children from Madrid. Some 25 hours of normal, unrehearsed conversation serve as a linguistic corpus illustrative of vocabulary development at a specified age level. Half-hour recording sessions were made in groups of three, consisting of boys or girls from the…

Since speech pathologists are interested in the role nonfluent behavior may play in the onset or development of stuttering, this study compared the linguistic behavior of 17 fluent four-year-old children to that of 17 nonfluent children similar in age, intelligence, sex, sibling status, race, socioeconomic status, and education. The aspects of…

Assuming that a child uses a "reduced version" of the adult phonological system, as opposed to an "imperfect" version, a phonological analysis of a five-year-old child's language is conducted. Research procedures are thoroughly described; tables and diagrams are included. (DD)