Three children were observed interacting with their mothers before the onset of single words, when vocabulary consisted of 10 words, and when it consisted of 50 words. Relations between communicative functions and acoustic analysis of prosodic variables were studied. Considerable variability was found in the number of rises produced overall and…

Presents key aspects of the whole-language perspective; describes examples of whole-language principles in practice in elementary, secondary and adult English-as-a-Second-Language programs; and reviews recent whole-language research on second-language development. (56 references) (VWL)

A study of children's acquisition of synonymy as a sense-property during the second childhood period (as defined by Piaget) suggests that, contrary to psychologists' claims, nominal realism is a linguistic phenomenon that should be studied as such. (75 references) (Author/CB)

The inverted-U model, facilitating and debilitating anxiety and state trait anxiety, is examined along with the relationship of these concepts to second-language learning, including English as a Second or Foreign Language. Research in the area of foreign-language classroom anxiety is also noted. (35 references) (LB)

Two experiments were conducted to explore processing of relative clause structures by normal elderly adults. Four groups of subjects (aged 20-29 years, 60-69 years, 70-79 years, and 80-89 years) participated in a lexical decision task and a sentence repetition task. (19 references) (VWL)

A research study is reported that studied (1) the effect of respondents' chronological age on attitudes toward patronizing speech directed at the institutionalized elderly and (2) the prevalence of and understanding of patronizing speech toward noninstitutionalized elderly individuals. (36 references) (LB)

Using a type-case analytic approach, this study investigates the teaching/learning process in an intermediate-level college Spanish conversation course to answer questions about the development of communicative competence. It demonstrates constraints and limitations and suggests the need to reconceptualize theoretical and methodological approaches…

Two studies measured the effects of overall and genre-specific extensive reading habits on performance on tests of school-based writing. Results suggest that, at most, extensive exposure to written texts may have little impact on nonnative writing proficiency. Further research is recommended. (13 references) (LB)

Ways in which curriculum development and methodology in teaching English as a Second Language can take account of learners are discussed. In addition, ways that teachers and researchers can collaborate in the process of developing a learner-center curriculum are examined. (28 references) (LB)

Many language teachers experience frustrations about their lack of success in developing fluency in their students. Reasons for the difficulties are discussed, and the avoidance of short-cuts is advocated. (LB)

Discusses the relevance and validity of using language data other than English for grammatical and psycholinguistic classroom research. A practical teacher training activity is described that is designed to not only develop trainees' syntactic analysis skills, but also raise awareness of their grammatical learning style and how this style relates…

Examines the effects of other linguistic structures on the process of phonological downstep (where pitch declines during the course of utterances) in Japanese. It is concluded that the downstep process involves not only a phonological aspect but two other aspects, metrical and rhythmic. (23 references) (JL)

Discusses Tone sandhi, the tone changes undergone by tone-bearing syllables in juxtaposition, in several Chinese dialects. The tone group is examined as a syntatico-semantic unit in Fuzhou and Mandarin and as a syntactic boundary-marker in Shanghai and Xiamen. The theoretical and pedagogical implications are discussed. (20 references) (JL)

Conducts a naturalistic study in a first grade remediation classroom to study language in use and to consider the transactive nature of spelling. Finds that spelling is a social/transactive process in which the learner makes meaning through interpretations of transactions among themselves, others, and the environment. (MG)

A pilot experiment examined ambiguity in English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) learning by graduate and undergraduate students. The findings revealed that most ESL speakers have greatest difficulty in understanding sentences with derived-structure ambiguity. Underlying-structure ambiguity was the next most difficult to understand, followed by lexical…