A study is reported relevant to the relationship between first words learned by children and gestural symbolization under a variety of contextual conditions. It is part of a larger longitudinal study of 32 children at 10, 13, 20, and 27 months of age. The children were seen in three standardized situations for eliciting gestural and vocal symbols:…

The question is addressed whether a child would develop a communication system if a conventional linguistic model is absent. Six congenitally deaf children, who were not exposed to Sign Language, were observed and videotaped at play in their homes at intervals of one to three months. The children ranged in age from 1 year, 5 months to 4 years, 1…

This paper reviews studies on classroom talk and on mother-child interaction; it compares the latter with classroom talk and speculates on what language in the classroom could be. The discussion of language in the classroom revolves around: (1) the speech situation, that is, a situation organized in terms of some nonverbal activity; (2) the speech…

JUNE 1964 RESEARCH INDICATED THAT EXPOSURE TO TIME-COMPRESSED SPEECH COULD PRODUCE A SUBSTANTIALLY IMPROVED DEGREE OF COMPREHENSION, IN MALE COLLEGE STUDENTS, OF MATERIAL PRESENTED AT SPEEDS RANGING FROM 325 TO 475 WORDS PER MINUTE. AS AN EXTENSION OF ACTIVITIES DESCRIBED IN THE PROGRESS REPORT OF JUNE 1964, THE EXPERIMENT DESCRIBED HERE WAS…

A 3-YEAR EXPERIMENT, BEGUN IN 1959 IN THE CHAMPAIGN, ILLINOIS PUBLIC SCHOOLS, WAS DESIGNED TO DETERMINE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF NONSPECIALISTS IN FLES PROGRAMS. THE TWO CONTROL CLASSES IN THE EXPERIMENT WERE TAUGHT BY A SPECIALIST WHO MODELED, APPRAISED, AND REPRESENTED THE CULTURE OF THE LANGUAGE IN AN AUDIOLINGUALLY ORIENTED CLASSROOM SITUATION,…

ALTHOUGH ADMINISTRATIVE DIFFICULTIES COMPELLED A 2-PHASED PROJECT, BEGUN AT INDIANA UNIVERSITY IN THE 1966-67 ACADEMIC YEAR, TO BE TERMINATED BEFORE ANY CONCLUSIVE DATA HAD BEEN GATHERED, SOME OF THE OBSERVATIONS MADE DURING THE INITIAL STAGE OF THE EXPERIMENT MIGHT PROVOKE NEEDED FURTHER INVESTIGATION. THE PILOT RUN, DESIGNED TO DEVELOP MATERIALS…

THERE ARE SEVERAL NOTEWORTHY DEVELOPMENTS AND SOME UNSOLVED PROBLEMS IN FOREIGN- AND SECOND-LANGUAGE LEARNING. INTENSIFIED INTEREST IN INCREASING NUMBERS OF SPANISH-SPEAKING INHABITANTS IN THE AMERICAN SOUTHWEST IS THE MOST VISIBLE DEVELOPMENT IN THE AREA OF SECOND-LANGUAGE LEARNING. IN FOREIGN-LANGUAGE LEARNING, WHERE THE EMPHASIS IS ON…

DESIGNED FOR TEACHERS OR SCHOOL OFFICIALS INTERESTED IN THE RATIONALE AND PROBLEMS OF TEACHING FLES, THIS PACKET CONTAINS A DIVERSIFIED SELECTION OF ARTICLES AND REPORTS PUBLISHED FROM 1954 TO THE PRESENT. INCLUDED ARE--(1) "FLES--SOME QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS," (2) "FLES--AN MLA STATEMENT OF POLICY," (3) "THE MEANING OF FLES" (BROOKS), (4) "A FL IN…

A study was undertaken in order to provide current data and comprehensive information about Chinese language instruction in United States higher education. This report is based on the responses to a survey in 1979. In addition to the discussion of the survey responses, an examination of changes that have taken place since a previous report in 1969…

One hundred and twenty kindergarten and second grade children from 3 different language environments (40 Mexican Spanish-speaking children from Monterrey, Mexico, and 40 Chicano Spanish-speaking children and 40 English-speaking children from the same public elementary school in Houston, Texas) were given a perceptual matching test and a verbal…

The study was designed to test the effects of a limited amount of sentence-combining practice on the syntactic development and overall writing ability of foreign students. Participants were freshmen studying English as a second language during an eight-week period. Twenty-four students were divided into a control and an experimental group. The…

Most studies of language acquisition overlook the fact that a child learns language in the context of acquiring the social skill of conversing known as "turn-taking." The few studies of verbal turn-taking in children suggest that prosodic features (suprasegmentals) and turn-taking skills are integrated by the age of two years, nine months, and…

Studies were conducted to help determine criteria for describing the stages through which second language learners pass as they acquire a new language. The ability of 24 beginning adult students of English as a second language to supply ten morphemes in obligatory contexts was predicted on the basis of contrastive analysis between English and each…

Research in linguistics (theoretical, socio- and psycho-linguistics) on relative clause formation is reveiwed in order to determine the advisability of teaching this construction in English as a second language (ESL) classes. It is suggested that research on other constructions can lead to implications for teaching these constructions when there…

Drawing on recent research on sexism in English and the ways in which social forces affect language structure, this paper shows how prescriptive statements about English have been incorporated into linguistic grammars as descriptions of language. It is claimed that Chomsky's "universal grammar" is masculinist and that it is contradicted…