Based on the premise that research findings about children's language acquisition might support theories about the learning of reading, this paper reviews research that has addressed the development of language production and the relationship between language ability and reading achievement. The first section of the literature review deals with…

The "yes/no" method of vocabulary assessment requires students to indicate words they know from among a list of words and nonwords. Preliminary evidence gained from a study involving fifth grade students indicates that the method is superior in many ways to the multiple choice method of assessment. Analysis of "false alarms," cases in which…

A study explored the relationship between oral and written patterns produced by a group of black college freshmen enrolled in remedial writing classes. Forty students were asked to produce, in formal language style, both oral and written summaries of a reading selection. The data were analyzed to determine (1) the extent to which patterns,…

A unifying methodology of diffusion studies is presented treating geographical, sociological, and historical phonomena of language within the same framework. Patterns of linguistic innovation and the social and psychological motivations for such a change, both in the individual and in society, are summarized in their functions as predictors of…

A study was conducted to determine if verbs were learned as easily as other words by primary school children. One hundred eight kindergarten children were divided into high, medium, and low I.Q. ranges and each range group was further divided--one group for each of three testing methods at each intelligence level. A list of words including 25…

This study examined the conditions for the selection of certain communication strategies in terms of the inferencing ability of the learner, the formal proficiency level attained, and the features of the communicative situation (task requirements). Two groups of 17-year-olds--one studying advanced French and the other French as part of a "core"…

Papers that address implications of linguistic theory for applied linguistics are presented. In "Some Semantic Properties of Some Conjunctions," W. Abraham is concerned with the function of "but" and its translation equivalents in German and other languages. In "Is It Possible and Necessary to Write Text Grammars?," T. P. Krzeszowski examines the…

The question of whether children's accentuation strategies are determined by the linguistically established context was studied. A second investigation determined whether the difference between distinctive and nondistinctive information is marked by the speaker's accentuation, focusing the listener's attention upon the crucial information. In the…

A total of 224 subjects participated in a study to determine how children and adults comprehend logical connectives. Specifically, the study examined the effects of age, content, and practice on the encoding and combination of logical relationships expressed by six types of logical connectives: conjunction, disjunction, conditionality,…

This research discusses the probability of child witnesses providing a complete and accurate description of an event. Children have been regarded as particularly inaccurate, highly suggestible, and basically unreliable in court cases. Psychologists have concluded that younger children are much more suggestible than older children or adults, and a…

This paper reports on an experiment undertaken to delineate more clearly the relationship between the naming process in children and certain aspects of the environment which may play a role in that process. The investigation concerned the effect of manipulation and of object novelty on naming. Sixteen children, ten girls and six boys, ranging in…

Comprehension of reversible active and passive sentences was studied with 48 Japanese children between the ages of two and six. Four types of sentences were constructed using passive and active structures and two word orders: subject-object-verb (SOV) and object-subject-verb (OSV). The basic order of elements in a simple sentence in Japanese is…

This paper describes part of a larger study dealing with syntax and semantics of the child's early speech about motion and location. It suggests that goal, defined as the point at which a motion ends and a resulting locative state begins, is the organizing principle for the semantics of motion and location. The data presented here are from two…

Linguistic and pedagogical considerations about children's use of a second language in the classroom are discussed with reference to samples of speech obtained from ten to twelve year old children in Germany. The children had been taught the second language of English. The speech is examined in relation to functional and sociolinguistic criteria…

This introduction to, and comment upon, a symposium on communicative competence argues that the appropriate unit of analysis in language development is communicative competence and proposes that the development of communicative competence can be studied usefully through observing children's communication during role play. Communicative competence…