The systematic confounding and belittling of deaf people's language systems have negatively affected their language and learning skills. Deaf individuals must recognize this form of oppression and their own personal power by taking control of research and study in this field. (CB)

Reviews the notion of communicative competence in light of its relevance for issues in literacy and the teaching of reading. Defines four components of communicative competence, i.e., grammatical, sociolinguistic, discourse, and strategic competence. Discusses their role in the reading process in light of linguistic theory and classroom research.…

Compares metaphors and intimate relationships, arguing that both may be viewed as relational and categorized into four distinct styles. Results indicated validity for assignment of three relationship types concluding that parallels exist between linguistic and social forms. (NKA)

Investigates the availability of surface representations for the interpretation of verb-phrase ellipsis. Results show that an elliptical verb phrase is most easily interpreted if its antecedent is in the immediately preceding sentence and that this can not be explained in terms of the unnaturalness of the passages with distant antecedents. (MM)

Identifies various speech styles of English as marked by stance adverbials. Indicates that the discourse functions of stance adverbials differ considerably from the functions suggested by their literal meanings. (JK)

Evaluates two studies concerning the ease of learning Esperanto and concludes that the studies support Esperantists' claims that the language is easier to learn than are natural languages. The claim, however, could be challenged because of the wide range of variable factors involved in language learning. (Author/CB)

Reports the results of a six month qualitative study examining the reading and writing behavior in the natural pretend play of eight children four and five years old. Suggests that literacy is involved in two ways: (1) story making using setting, plot and resolution, and (2) displaying a literacy stance or orientation toward reading and…

Clarifies and defines quantitative research as it is applied to the study of language acquisition. Trends in the use of quantitative and nonquantitative methods in applied linguistics are reported, and suggestions are made concerning useful paradigms and procedures for further research in language acquisition. (Author/CB)

Discusses the psychological implications of metaphorical language in second language learning and teaching, and their effect on students' classroom behavior and instructors' self-perceptions. These figures of speech, categorized as "human" (military, medical), and "non-human" (culinary, gardening) posit dyadic, negative relationships. Teachers…

Three types of overgeneral uses of object names by young children were identified. Production data from 10 children were obtained using a standardized method of recording utterance contexts. Results showed that, like adults, children's object categories applied to objects of particular kinds. Most overgeneral uses were attributable to…

Presents findings of ethnographic research on children's talk and behavior, specifically routines in spontaneous peer play and verbal routines in structured activities. Concludes that instructional strategies should incorporate some of the features of children's play routines and peer culture. (SRT)

Discusses two studies in Italian which (1) used texts that varied along a number of stylistic dimensions and (2) tested the generalizability of the recent research which suggests that recognition memory for verbatim material depends in part on the role played by a given form in the discourse as a whole. (NKA)

Investigates young children's ability to adjust the content of their verbal responses according to what they know their listener knows. Younger and older three-year-old children were able to discern what another person knew and did not know and adjusted their responses accordingly. Younger three-year-olds tended to be underinformative. (SED)

Tests the prediction that children acquiring left-branching languages will exhibit a preference for backward patterns of anaphora by presenting data from Japanese and Korean which show the prediction to be false. Findings support the view that any directionality preference for anaphora is the same for all languages. (Author/SED)

A study investigated the effect of relevant background knowledge on the reading comprehension of students of Spanish. Students with limited knowledge of baseball took a comprehension test on a Spanish-language report of a baseball game. Results indicate that background knowledge is possibly more important than language level for comprehension.…