A "gambit" is any of the hundreds of brief, idiomatic rejoinders, rhetorical phrases, or comments that are essential to fluent conversation. This textbook fosters familiarity with such phrases in English by encouraging their use in the carrying out of a series of provocative class exercises, including a handwriting analysis and a "love test."…

The background and the current status of Chinese newspapers in the United States are examined in this paper. The first section considers early immigration patterns of Chinese people, their immigration to the West Coast of the United States beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, laws passed to exclude Chinese from legally entering the U.S., and…

The depth and pervasiveness of linguistic symbols of sexual identity, difference, and hierarchy are discussed in this paper. After noting that the language of sexism begins at birth and is recognized and used by preschool children, the paper points to patterns of linguistic sexism in the semantics and syntax of the English language, in written and…

Typically, teachers approach ambiguity in student writing by suggesting that students focus on diction, syntax, and writing format; however, the works of modernists (including T.S. Eliot, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Karl Marx, and Pablo Picasso) suggest the importance of conceptions of semantic clarity. Transformational models for syntactic elements in…

Sex-related language stereotypes and sex-related differences in language usage are examined in this paper, and some recent research findings that illuminate them are reported. The following topics are among those discussed: seemingly universal characterizations of women's speech as gossip, nagging, or chatting, partially explained by most…

The term "syllabus" usually refers to an outline statement of what is to be taught and learned in a particular course. Among the several types of statements for language-teaching syllabuses are the grammatical, notional, and situational. These statements are not in themselves syllabuses but can be called pre-syllabuses. A grammatical…

Skilled and unskilled writers were given detailed information about an urban planning project and then read a letter from an influential, interested, and potentially hostile writer requesting information about the project. Each writer was next asked to generate all the ideas needed to answer the letter, organize a framework for the letter from a…

The middle childhood years are a period of refinement of the semantics and syntax acquired in the early years, of substantial metalinguistic development, and of subtle changes in actual processing strategies. In a study undertaken to determine how these three factors interact, children aged 6 to 11 were asked to produce and recognize paraphrases.…

The semantic change which has occurred in an Austrian community over the past seventy-five years is examined. The study is based on a comparison of an 1897 word list, sound inventory, and phonograph recording with 1973 recordings of sixty informants from four age groups and five socioeconomic strata. In Inmst, the development from an…

The function of speech and its implications for studying, understanding, and promoting language development are explored in this paper. Function is considered to be the purpose of the speaker when speaking, variously termed context of situation, situation, context, circumstance, or mode. It is noted that very few studies of speech and speech…

A study was undertaken to determine if the removal of black English dialect as oral reading errors would influence the scores obtained on three oral reading diagnostic tests: the Gray Oral Reading Test, the Gilmore Oral Reading Test, and the Spache Diagnostic Reading Scales. In addition, the study investigated whether there were differences in the…

Results of a 1975 sociolinguistic survey of all the ethnic groups of the South American Black population are presented. The sample of 3,653 people between the ages of 15 and 54 was from the urban and rural areas of all the provinces and homelands of the Republic of South Africa. Findings indicate that proficiency in English is relatively strongly…

THE SCOPE OF THE NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY CURRICULUM CENTER'S RESEARCH PROGRAM IN TEACHING COMPOSITION TO THE BEGINNING WRITER IS DEFINED IN THE EIGHT PAPERS COMPRISING THIS COLLECTION. THE TOPICS FOR THE PAPERS ARE--(1) LIMITING THE AIMS OF TEACHING COMPOSITION IN THE SEVENTH- AND EIGHTH-GRADES TO INCLUDE ONLY NARRATIVE AND DESCRIPTIVE WRITING AND…

A study was undertaken to explore the relationship of mothers' language to infant development in terms of the infants' development of sensorimotor intelligence. Specifically, the study chronicled the infants' advances in sensorimotor development from J. Piaget's Stage II to Stage III as a possible explanation for changes in maternal language. It…

The use of formulaic speech is seen as a learning strategy in children's first language (L1) acquisition to a limited extent, and to an even greater extent in their second language (L2) acquisition. While the first utterances of the child learning L1 are mostly one-word constructions, many of them are routine words or phrases that the child learns…