Early Childhood programs designed to promote improved language skills are assessed in terms of contrastive assumptions underlying a different vs. deficient point of view. Both positions are rejected as inadequate because of their lack of correspondence to both theory and reality, and an alternative theory of communicative competence is proposed.…

This practical booklet, intended for those who are transcribing oral interviews into manuscript form, provides transcribing and editing guidelines that are particularly pertinent to oral history interviews. The major factor involved in a transcription is its editing. Editing is defined as making the material suitable for use by researchers and the…

Discusses the study of colloquial Spanish in literary texts. Presents an annotated list of Spanish colloquial expressions extracted from "Paralelo 40" by Jose Luis Castillo-Puche. (Text is in Spanish.) (TL)

The factors which underlie discussions of the legitimacy, pedagogy, and politics of the variants of Spanish spoken in the United States are discussed. [In Spanish] (Author/NQ)

Through a survey and in-depth interviews, three major cliques were identified at a middle income suburban high school near Boston. "Jocks,""motorheads," and "fleabags" were groupings based, respectively, on common interests in sports, cars, and drugs. Each clique is described in terms of appearance, general…

Beginning journalism students learned and adapted to the new Associated Press Stylebook more easily when they first studied the old stylebook with the most significant revisions added. (RL)

Texts using actual current language are highly motivating, but they demand considerable knowledge of the language. "Authentic" language--regional, technical, or sociologically conditioned--need not be scorned. Even the written style merits attention. (IFS/WGA)

Presents samples of 15 styles of Arabic script for a verse from the Koran. The introduction briefly describes semitic language structure. (Author/DB)

Gives definitions for the component parts of acceptable translations in order to reconcile differences of opinion stemming from a variety of points of view. (MLA)

Presents examples of sexist language which express and reinforce attitudes which limit the options and opportunities of girls and women. (MKM)

Discusses an experiment in progress to prove that irony in written texts is discernible to the non-native speaker through logical or linguistic cues. (Text is in French.) (AM)

The premise that diglossamania, which is a pressure for second language learners to produce in English the equivalent style of the mother tongue, and which in turn leads to an artificial style, is discussed. (HP)

Discusses the importance of two Firthian themes for language teaching. The first theme, "Restricted Languages," concerns the "microlanguages" of every language (e.g., literary language, scientific, etc.). The second theme, "Collocation," shows that equivalent words in two languages rarely have the same position in…

Examined verb type and noun case role usages of a counselor and client from the first, 11th, and 25th interviews in one counseling case. Analysis indicated participants were remarkably similar in frequency with which they used specific verb types and case roles of particular noun phrases within each interview. (Author)

Investigation of the communicative functions of pitch direction and range in one-year-olds (N=2) indicated that use of pitch among infants may be related to a period where communicative intentions are clearly defined, but language is not yet available. A higher pitch was observed among infants who made repeated requests for objects as opposed to…