A description of scientific language using three approaches: text, textualization, and discourse. Scientific discourse is analogous to universal deep structure; text, to surface variations in diverse languages; and textualization, to transformational processes. The relationship of the primary and secondary (scientific) cultures and their languages…

This article discusses the notion of acquiring a basic threshold of communicative competence in a second language as it applies to the instruction of French as a second language. (Text is in French.) (CLK)

Though it is not known to what extent the cultural orientation revealed in the therapeutic community's argot facilitates treatment, it is likely that at least for those who accept its concept, the therapeutic community provides a milieu in which effective resocialization can take place. (Author)

Discusses a study designed to identify areas of research which may increase under standing of the relationship between speaker profanity and impression formation. Provides an experimental test of the predicted interrelationships between profanity, sex variables, and impression formation. (MH)

The teacher of English to non-native speakers needs information not available in a descriptive English grammar. This article examines the teacher's grammatical needs with reference to article usage in English and proposes an outline of one section of such a teaching grammar. Items discussed are "a,""the,""-s" and "some." (CHK)

Critically examines papers by Wellman and Estes, Olson and Torrance, and Hall and Nagy. (AEW)

Two experiments indicating that children's linguistic generalizational biases change from a semantically-based system to a syntactical-structural system provide evidence for a semantic-relational bias in children's early grammars and support the notion that children's generalizational biases shift from a semantic-relational basis to a…

Preliminary results from a large research project on the use of Frisian and Dutch in the official domain in Friesland focuses on language use in contacts between civil servants and customers in service encounters. Language patterns observed include convergence, neutrality, switching, and asymmetry. (CB)

Examples of the Croats in the Burgenland and the Slovenes in Carinthia (Slavic minorities in Austria) are presented to illustrate the importance of comparing different multilingual communities to make a typologically relevant description of them to understand typological similarities and certain idiosyncratic characteristics. (Author/CB)

A survey indicated that out of 1,888 teachers of hearing-impaired students, 140 use American Sign Language (ASL) in their classrooms. Further investigation reduced this number to 25 who actually use ASL and 6 who probably do. (Author/CB)

Reviews some of the basic notions of semiotics to show how they can be applied to composition teaching. (FL)

No single foreign language teaching method can produce speakers with competence in all areas of the target language. Teachers should be aware that the relative importance of form versus function varies with the specific goals of language use and should consider the consequences of fossilization, error correction, and comprehensibility in teaching…

Study of a one-year-old's earliest use of prepositions found that spatial oppositions ("up-down") were learned first, and used in non-prepositional senses prior to prepositional usage. "With,""by,""to,""for,""at," and "of" were learned later and used to express case relationships and more often misused and omitted than the earlier-learned…

Reviews previous research and presents and analyzes data regarding some possible connections between small group oral interaction and language learning. Data show that communicative interaction is far more sensitive and significant to learners' needs and abilities than are other forms of language work. (CB)

Research in the area of language skill attrition encompasses such areas as first-language loss, second-language loss, dying languages, and effects of age or disease on language loss. Research has so far focused on maintenance of language skills and interventions to stop language skill attrition. (CB)