A variety of informal language development assessment tools is presented for use with children with developmental disabilities. This book is written as a manual for clinicians and researchers for evaluating children who cannot meet the cognitive, perceptual, or motor requirements of standardized tests and to help evaluate aspects of language not…

A study of the discourse structure of oral language proficiency interviews focused on (1) one principal discourse variable, topic, for analyzing contingency and goal orientation in dyadic interactions, and (2) contextual factors (interlocutor, theme, task, participant gender). Data came from 30 dyadic oral interviews in English as a Second…

A study investigated the variety of ways in which managers use language in sociolinguistically sensitive ways to get things done at work. Drawing on a database of over 300 interactions in a range of New Zealand workplaces, aspects of power (how things are accomplished), politeness (the importance of small talk), and solidarity (the difference…

To see what students think the title Ms. means, and also to see what implications and impressions they attach to Ms., a study questioned 68 college students (36 female, 32 male) on their best approximations of "dictionary definitions" for the titles Ms., Mr., Mrs., and Miss. Respondents also provided personal connotations for the titles…

Word processors have been shown to favor a local perspective over a global perspective on the text during writing. Recently, advanced outline processors or "idea processors" have appeared that allow the writer to represent and handle structural aspects of a text so that the writer may compose the text within an outline and experiment with…

To identify the means by which scientific discourse achieves any degree of success in representing nature, an examination was made of Arthur H. Compton's and Alfred W. Simon's paper, "Measurements of Beta-Rays Associated with Scattered X-Rays," which originally appeared in 1925. Analysis reveals that the rhetorical choices of Compton,…

This study examined the differences in the use of language in television commercials from the United States, Japan, South Korea, and China to persuade viewers (consumers) to buy a product. Because cultural norms in these East Asian nations favor indirectness when suggesting or recommending, it was hypothesized that: 1) suggestions would be more…

As English becomes institutionalized in nations that do not share its Western cultural traditions, the language broadens. The English produced in new contexts naturally takes on the flavor of its surroundings, delivering a blend of native and Western linguistic features, semantic and pragmatic qualities, literary heritages, and the like. The…

The extensive use of clausal embedding in legal language is examined. The extent and depth of left-branching, nested, and right- branching clauses in the 1972 British Road Traffic Act are also studied. The complexity of the resulting constructions, and the problems created for comprehension are described. The analysis reveals complex sequences of…

Current thinking about academic language and the variety of language appropriate to school and similar settings is discussed. Recent literature concerning academic language is explored, and common themes and significant observations that emerge when the concept is viewed from a sociological perspective are examined. The research reviewed includes…

The field methods for data collection in a research project on linguistic change and variation in the Philadelphia speech community, their origins and use, are described. Five working principles of the project are detailed: (1) there are no single style speakers; (2) styles can be ranged along a single dimension, according to the attention paid to…

A study of the influence of the writer's social and cultural background and training on the organization of his or her writing was studied in essays written by two groups of students: Chinese students at the Beijing Institute of International Relations and the Xian Foreign Language Institute and foreign students in the United States. The essays…

To determine the most effective communication style for women in management, a study examined which of three power/gender speech strategies--stereotypical feminine (powerless), stereotypical masculine (powerful), and mixed stereotypical masculine/stereotypical feminine--was perceived most effective for a male or female when communicating with a…

A study assessed the ability of 20 eleventh grade students to recognize particular stylistic features when reading and then to use such features in their writing. Half the subjects were given a model paragraph from an Edgar Allen Poe story, without having the story identified for them, while the other half received only a verbal summary of the…