Six judges evaluated 20 randomly selected essays from a remedial writing program at the University of Houston to study racial differences in writing and the reasons for such differences. The judges, who were not informed of the race of the writers, examined the essays for the following writing features: free associations, redundancy (ineffective…

The creative oral language elicited from 45 preoperational and 40 concrete operational first grade students was analyzed to study the relationship between cognitive development and the types of case relationships produced. Each child's language was analyzed for eight noun/verb relationships, including state, process, action, experience, location,…

Regardless of the way in which one chooses authentic texts for a course in reading a language for special purposes, at one time or another, one is confronted with the problem of textual analysis. The analysis has to be done in view of the course objectives. A pre-instructional analysis allows the instructor to work out teaching strategies which…

To teach students how to write in a contemporary style, a secondary-school English teacher must be able to describe adequately the kind of writing he expects. Since many modern writers frequently ignore the guidelines proffered in traditional writing handbooks, the "new rhetoric"--a descriptive approach to composition that substitutes…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 12 titles deal with the following topics: a television course designed to improve community college students' writing skills; Christian humanism and the teaching of English; a folklore curriculum for junior high school students…

This paper serves as an introduction to a group of papers produced by the Classroom Interaction Project of the Center for Research in Social Behavior at the University of Missouri in Columbia. This project has been chiefly concerned with ascertaining if black-ghetto and white-suburban classrooms use language differently and, if so, in what ways.…

The "direct discourse analysis" introduced by Susumu Kuno is examined and found to be inadequate. To account for the data Kuno discusses, as well as for related data, a new approach to transformations is suggested. By determining the function, rather than the form, of a transformation, certain predictions are possible. Primary is the…

This study of hierarchy and universality in the languages of New Guinea seeks to describe and place the run-on surface structures found in those languages. In the process, traditional stereotypes of "sentence" and "paragraph" are questioned and revised, while hierarchy -- a fundamental characteristic of language -- is shown to…

Hierarchies have been identified as determinants of constituent order. The set of such hierarchies is reviewed and ranked as determinants of NP sequencing in English. The effect of a hierarchy in other languages is compared to and contrasted with what is found in English. (Author/LMO)

Relates research on second language acquisition (SLA) and research on the language problems of foreign teaching assistants (TAs) and their remediation. SLA research has not yet addressed specific data on the proficiency level needed for effective foreign TAs. Research needs are outlined. (Author/LMO)

Examines the experience of reading student writing by holding it against current views of reading from literary theory and composition studies. Describes this experience as a concentrated effort at once to read and not to "read" the student writing. (MS)

Offers an approach to text analysis that discusses what makes good writing good. Argues that good writing involves the presentation of propositions that are not too dense, in a schema that is familiar or explained carefully, requiring not much inference on the part of the reader, and in a pattern that is coherent from beginning to end. (MS)

Uses text processing (computer) and pen and paper protocols to compare the revising process of professional writers and experienced writers (PhD students). Concludes tentatively that (1) professional and experienced writers do not differ in their approach; (2) the interaction between human and machine influences the writing process; and (3) that…

Analyzes the five factors in combination that appear to account for the mind-set in which the decision to launch the Challenger was made: (1) perceived pressure, (2) rigid conformity to perceived role requirements, (3) questionable reasoning, (4) ambiguous use of language, and (5) failure to ask important relevant questions. (NKA)

Communication in the undergraduate science curriculum in an Indian university is restricted primarily to the teacher explaining and the students understanding. The English curriculum at the same university includes practice in the interaction process as well, but could do much more to improve the communicative competence of the students. (LMO)