Contrastive analysis is viewed as an interlinguistic, bidirectional phenomenon which is concerned with both the form and function of language. As such, contrastive analysis must view language psycholinguistically and sociolinguistically as a system to be both described and acquired. Due to the need for a psychological component in the analysis,…

Language skill attrition refers to the loss of any language or portion of a language whether it be the declining use of mother tongue skills, the replacement of one language by another in language contact situations, the deterioration of language in the neurologically impaired or elderly, or the death of whole languages. In this paper, language…

Investigators agree that mothers employ a variety of request forms and that children seem to be able to respond to these forms with a remarkable degree of accuracy. It is suggested that the speech of mothers to their children is filled with requests which are really not requests at all. It is shown that many of what appear to be adult requests to…

A dialect survey of the transition between two major Indo-Aryan languages in Nepal, Bhojpuri and Maithili, was conducted focusing on both the linguistic and sociolinguistic aspects of the various languages and dialects. The purpose of the study was to find out where and how this transition occurred between the pure Bhojpuri-speaking area and the…

This booklet provides guidelines to produce effective, responsive business letter writing, which promotes public relations, gives plain answers to questions, clearly states requests for additional information, and increases office efficiency and economy. Four major characteristics of such letters are discussed: (1) brevity and the avoidance of…

The "cognitive clarity theory of reading" represents a resolution of the controversies about the relation between speech, writing, and reading. The work of M.A.K. Halliday suggests that learning to read and write is a natural extension of the "mathetic" speech functions, which consist of speech related to children's attempts to understand…

Students in college basic writing courses need to consider their own written language and to compare it with other students' work before they can develop a sense of the symbolic relationship between language and experience. Because of a lack of previous writing experience, basic writers have no sense that the "facts" about which they…

Papers presented at the Southwest Area Language and Linguistics Workshop (SWALLOW) include both theoretical and practical contributions. First and second language acquisition was studied in terms of its effects on first language, its acquisition in a bilingual classroom, and its assessment. Native American student speeches were examined in terms…

IT IS NOW THE YEAR 1976, AND CHANGE IN OUR ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING HAS BEEN AFFECTED BY A MODERN AMERICAN REVOLUTION. AS ENGLISH BECOMES MORE UNIVERSAL, SO DOES THE ORAL-AURAL METHOD OF TEACHING IT. IN UNITED STATES CLASSROOMS, CHILDREN PRACTICE ORALLY THOSE PATTERNS THEY NEED, EXPERIMENT WITH WORD ORDER, AND GAIN A KNOWLEDGE OF SENTENCE…

IN CONNECTION WITH RESEARCH INTO THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN STANDARD ENGLISH AND THE NONSTANDARD DIALECTS OF THE URBAN GHETTOS, IT WAS FOUND THAT THERE IS A DIFFERENCE IN THE RELATIVE DEPTH OR ABSTRACTNESS OF THE UNCONSCIOUS GRAMMATICAL RULES. IN MEMORY OR "SHADOW" TESTS, GROUPS OF NEGRO BOYS FROM 10 TO 14 YEARS OLD WERE HIGHLY MOTIVATED TO…

The simplification of legal language is required by President Carter's Executive Order requiring "clear and simple English" in government regulations. A major problem in the simplification process is the absence of any adequate description or classification of legal language. This paper defines some specific features of legal language,…

Detailed materials for the assessment of language use in a responsive environment are provided for teachers and teaching assistants. Part A consists of a manual and guide for language assessment. A brief account of the responsive model's approach to language instruction is given. Additional sections introduce and describe the observation and…

SPEAKING AN ORAL LANGUAGE AND SPEAKING A WRITTEN LANGUAGE INVOLVE DIFFERENT PATTERNS OF LANGUAGE USE WHICH ARE IN TURN RELATED TO DIFFERENT EDUCATIONAL METHODS AND DIFFERENT COURSES OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT. BECAUSE ORAL SPEECH RELIES ON CONTEXT FOR COMMUNICATION, A COMMON CONTEXT AND POINT OF VIEW IS ASSUMED BY THE SPEAKER TO EXIST BETWEEN THE…

THE TEACHING OF THE NATIVE LANGUAGE CAN BE DIVIDED INTO THREE MAJOR MODES--THE PRESCRIPTIVE, THE DESCRIPTIVE, AND THE PRODUCTIVE. PRESCRIPTIVE TEACHING PROCEEDS FROM TWO (SUSPECT) ASSUMPTIONS--(1) THAT THERE ARE ABSOLUTE STANDARDS UNANIMOUSLY KNOWN AND SHARED BY EDUCATED ADULTS, TO WHICH A STUDENT'S LANGUAGE SHOULD ATTAIN, AND (2) THAT…

This eighth-grade language unit stresses developing the student's sensitivity to variations in language, primarily the similarities and differences between spoken and written language. Through sample lectures and discussion questions, the students are helped to form generalizations about language: that speech is the primary form of language; that…