Concerned with college students' written composition and their understanding of English grammar, usage, and mechanics, this book is based on the beliefs that society is clearly class structured, that representatives of all classes attend various kinds of colleges, that society is responsible for each of these students, and that this obligation…

This work seeks to fill important gaps existing in the study of Peninsular Arabic, especially that of the United Arab Emirates. It presents an explicit outline of the structure of Gulf Arabic, based on the dialect of Abu Dhabi. It is intended for students and teachers of Gulf Arabic, for linguists and dialectologists, and for other individuals who…

This article outlines the history and development of the substratum theory concerning Spanish in the Americas, the basic tenet of the theory being the role of indigenous languages in phonological changes in Spanish. (CLK)

Links between language and identity are so strong that attempts to correct nonstandard speech are likely to be interpreted by West Indian children as criticism or rejection. A far more constructive approach would be to acknowledge and accept Creole in the classroom. (Author)

Black students that were grouped for English ability by their standardized test scores translated a standard English text into black dialect. Analytical data show group differences in dialect facility that correlate to standard English ability, suggesting that language development affects both dialect performance and standard English learning. (RL)

The introductory article in an issue devoted to language and communication situations. This topic is treated for the following reasons: linguistic competence means communicative competence; structure and external communication conditions have equal real value; and dichotomies are operative in different types of communication. (Text is in French.)…

Points out that the realistic concern for and knowledge of rural students in their own particular contexts help to motivate students in a composition classroom. (MB)

Argues that language varieties represent an important aspect of the development of bilingualism. Analysis of migrant children's acquisition of German and their productive, reactive, and receptive competence demonstrates that children who fail in the understanding and use of language varieties often lack the necessary sociocultural knowledge.…

A review of research concerning bilingual (English and Spanish) Chicanos' use of code-switching during spontaneous oral narrative indicates that such code-switching may be organized to achieve more dramatic effects through personalizing (as opposed to objectionalizing) certain parts of the narrative and through techniques of foregrounding and…

Discusses language use as a variable in studies of second-language learning, considering a study of 300 secondary school students learning Chinese that showed that integrative and instrumental motivation to be independent and that language use explains one-fifth of total variance in language achievement. (Author/CB)

Suggests that Slovene is acquiring a verb-second (V2) word order. Slovene is compared with Serbo-Croat to reveal diverged word order of these languages. Aspects of the history of the Germanic languages are examined for clues on current and possible future changes in Slovene. (Author/LMO)

Analysis of 12 Scottish and 12 American 3- to 6-year-olds interacting with adults indicated that, because Scottish adults use the present perfect tense more frequently in their speech to children than American adults do, Scottish children use the tense in their speech long before American children do. (Author/CB)

Discusses and compares the syntactic features of free relative clauses found in Castilian and Aragonese dialects of Old Spanish. The role of clitics (nontonic pronominals) and the lexical innovations of the wh-question compound-type clauses are highlighted. (TR)

Presents the "Englishes" of children from different social backgrounds that are reflected in the forms and functions of their individual ways of communicating. Discusses implications of these language varieties for the classroom. (HTH)

Investigates whether speakers of standard German and Dutch maintain their language variety better than speakers of German and Dutch dialects. Also investigates the phenomenon of diglossia in immigrant societies and shows that the type of diglossia prevalent in the immigrant's home country significantly affects the language situation in the new…