This two-volume collection of studies attempts to measure and describe the sociolinguistic norms of a Puerto Rican bilingual community. The target population of 43l individuals in a single neighborhood in Jersey City identify with the large Puerto Rican community of the greater New York area. The individual studies, all written to be understood…

Phonetic characteristics of English, German, Spanish, and French vowels are compared and contrasted in this third of a series of articles on general phonetic characteristics of American English. Much attention is given to acoustic and articulatory description. Vowel distribution, frequency, and duration are discussed. New vowel sounds for the…

The study had among its objectives (1) the determination of rural-urban differences in the use of Spanish and English by household heads and Spanish American children of these households, and (2) the relationships between language used by Spanish American household heads and selected socioeconomic factors. It was found that use of Spanish…

A review of publications in foreign language instruction from 1946 to 1952 focuses attention on the experimental studies conducted during that period and the resulting literature. The first part of the article notes bibliographies, reviews, reference books, and studies examining trends and objectives. A section on the psychology of language…

Even in culturally homogeneous settings, language has an important role in the social interaction of adolescents. This study investigated the importance of values concerning dialect and language variation in a group of 62 ninth-grade students. Subjects, 23 black, 21 white, and 18 native Spanish-speaking individuals, were asked to listen to a tape…

This book discusses the teaching and learning of a second language in terms of a total human experience and not just an oral-aural or cognitive one. Part one, "Memory," examines some of the research that has been done on memory, and discusses: (1) "Biological Bases for Memory"; (2) "Verbal Memory"; and (3)…

The interaction of children and stories is examined in this book, with particular attention to the way in which children's language usage indicates the development of their concept of story. The first two chapters of the book discuss the topic from a broad perspective, seeking a theoretical framework for organizing children's language usage.…

Children use simile and metaphor at an early age in both spontaneous oral language and written language. This study sought (1) to design an instrument to elicit children's spontaneous oral production of simile and metaphor, (2) to elicit such responses and examine the nature of the responses to different tasks and stimuli, (3) and to develop…

Recent developments in such fields as linguistics, logic, information theory, computer science, speech act theory, and psychology can lead to a greater interdisciplinary understanding of the process of writing (defined as purposeful activity involving language use in special modes). Purposes for writing, which may be correlated with the many…

The effect of children on adult language has only recently received serious consideration in the fields of linguistics, psychology, education, pediatrics and anthropology, although the importance of parental behavior for the language development of the child is universally recognized. This paper presents a review of the literature on children's…

The cognitive processing strategies of two groups of French-English bilinguals were studied by means of an auditory Stroop test designed to evaluate cerebral hemispheric involvement. An "early bilingual" group were bilingual before the age of five, and a "late bilingual" group were bilingual after the age of ten. Stimuli were…

The purpose of this study was to ascertain the awareness and application of Black English features by writers and producers of materials for young children which represent black characters in a fictive setting. The study was limited to materials which were available to inner city children in Cleveland, Ohio, through libraries. Fifty-three fiction…

Development of a typology for linguistic situations has been a continuing concern of sociolinguistic research. Thus far, however, typological studies have served primarily to demonstrate the difficulties involved in such an undertaking rather than producing results of obvious utility. With few exceptions, notably Greenberg 1956 and Pool 1972,…

This paper examines whether language development can be understood epigenetically in the same manner and based on the same principles with which Piaget has analyzed intellectual-cognitive development generally. The study is subdivided into four parts: (1) some principles in Piaget's system (the epigenetic principle, the genetic circle, and the…

This research report is concerned with establishing a minimum vocabulary of English instruction for French students at the secondary level. The approach to the investigation is based on choosing vocabulary that corresponds to the current communication needs of the students, has functional content, and takes the spoken language into account. The…