This study examines one aspect of sociolinguistics: social cues affecting the choice of language in the speech of children bilingual in Spanish and English. The study is based on data collected from the speech of two children, from birth to age nine in the first case and from birth to five in the second. Analysis focussed on the identification of…

This volume contains papers presented in connection with a symposium held in 1975 and sponsored by Abo Akademi, for the purpose of discussing ongoing research in word-order studies. Papers include: (1) a prolegomena by N.E. Enkvist; (2) "On the Ordering of Sister Constituents in Swedish," by E. Andersson; (3) "What is New…

A major problem in doing linguistic research from tape-recorded material is finding specific tape content for later, detailed analysis of data. A project on use of language in medicine being carried out at the Cornell University Medical College has developed a method of cataloguing taped material that eliminates the need for transcriptions and…

The acceptability of a sentence is dependent on context: some sentences look awkward in isolation but improve in an appropriate context, whereas other sentences look all right in isolation but fail to fit certain types of context. Of particular interest is the degree and specificity of textual fit of different thematic (theme-rheme, topic-comment)…

This paper describes an experiment in which the Developmental Sentence Scoring procedure, which has been used successfully for scoring sentence complexity in child language, was examined for its usefulness when applied to adult learners of English as a Second Language. The technique is based upon a developmental scale of syntax acquisition within…

With particular attention to the use of questions and the maintenance of topics, the classroom discussion of kindergarten children and their teacher during a storybook lesson was analyzed to determine how conversational control is maintained and what rules of conversation might apply in the classroom. A transcript for discourse analysis was…

The 19 conference papers in this collection deal with the relationship of various rhetorical theories and their practical applications to the rhetorical traditions that they are superseding. The papers deal with many topics, including the following: (1) a multidisciplinary approach to writing instruction; (2) the importance of writing as a human…

A paper by Keenan and Klein (1975) provided evidence for the hypothesis that conversationality is present in children as young as 2 and 1/2 years of age. Results of the study indicated that before the emergence of more adult-like coherency operations, the children passed through a period in which such operations were foreshadowed by vocal play.…

The acquisition of the copula and auxiliary "be" forms of "am,""is," and "are" was studied with 16 children. Spontaneous social speech samples were obtained from each child. One child's speech was sampled for approximately one hour per week from age 2;5 through 4;0, and for one-half hour per week from age 4;1 to 5;0. A second child's speech was…

The ontogenetic development of human vocal utterances and their role in early interaction processes were studied with a three-month-old baby. Recordings were made of infant vocalizations in the home and the sounds were classified. During a five-minute segment between the mother and infant, the infant produced 59 utterances, 93 percent of which had…

A study examined the concept of the universality or the cultural specificity of the ideal story structure using the J. M. Mandler and N. S. Johnson story grammar. Specifically, the study tested the effect of two different story structures, one a conventional fairy tale and the other a Cree Indian narrative, on the recall of Cree Indian children.…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 12 titles deal with the following topics: (1) John F. Kennedy's rhetoric during the 1960 West Virginia presidential primary; (2) male and female modes of rhetoric; (3) charismatic communication and faith healers; (4) the ideology…

Recent directions in ethnographic study of classroom interaction are surveyed for the help they can give to an analysis of classroom language and conversation. Many studies emphasize that children's responses to school tasks are directly influenced by values learned at home and that these factors add to the complexity of communication in the…

This paper considers a distinction frequently used in sociolinguistics and ethnography of speaking to describe speech events: their formality or informality. Three principle meanings of "formality" found in the literature concern whether the formality relates to properties of a communicative code, properties of the social setting in…

This study indicates that the way in which stories are presented to children (verbal versus pictorial) makes little or no difference in the children's comprehension or recall of the stories. Ninety-six kindergarten and second grade children either looked at a series of pictures (and were told they formed a story) or listened to the story through a…