Presents an overview (from a broad cultural and historical perspective) of the effect of two languages and cultures on the creation of literature, the cosmopolitanism, and bilingualism of writers, and the effects of the related phenomena of biculturalism and diglossia on the production of literary texts. Shows that bilingualism has been a feature…

This study examined use of connectors in oral narratives of 27 adult American learners of French, classified into four groups according to length of instruction and learning environment (classroom, immersion, mixed). Results show patterns of acquisition generally similar to those of children learning French as a native language and…

Explores the underlying psychology upon which media programs and services are developed and describes the psychology of producing media. Topics include editing, including non-linear editing; emotions; language, or semantics; symbols, or semiotics; production techniques, including narration and user control; motion pictures and television;…

Used the language intensity/message affect coding metric developed by R. Rogan and M. Hammer to evaluate variability in the language of 160 Euro-American and African-American college students responding to a free-response scenario. Results indicate significant differences in the level of affect present in messages communicated by the two groups.…

A collection of Webchat interaction data among English non-native speakers (NNS) and native speakers (NS) is the basis for a microanalytic investigation conducted from a conversation analysis (CA) perspective. The main purpose is to discover patterns and conversational strategies used by participants in this on-line context. (Author/VWL)

A study found that, when temporal characteristics of stops in a Spanish utterance by a native English-speaker were computer-manipulated, native Spanish-speakers' perceptions of the foreignness of the speech were affected. Results imply that Spanish language instruction should include instruction to shorten stops to more Spanish-like values,…

Investigates children's language and interaction during sharing time in a first-grade classroom. Observes that when sharing time shifted from a teacher-led to a child-led event, corresponding changes appeared in children's language. Suggests that teachers create speech situations that children control to encourage language development and…

Twenty-four adolescents participated in conversations with a same-sex peer, an opposite-sex peer, or a speech-language pathologist. Significant differences were found in linguistic behaviors between conversations with peers and those with clinicians. Conversations with opposite-sex peers tended to have fewer direct questions, reduced listener eye…

Investigates how readers use predication for the interpretation of referents in text and to develop a coherent model of the events described in text. Illustrates how two types of predication (scalar copredication and antipredication) induce readers to disambiguate the referents of definite noun phrases in essentially the opposite way, with…

This study used quantitative and qualitative methodology to examine the phonological patterns of 24 3-year-old and 30 4-year-old Spanish-speaking preschoolers of Puerto Rican descent. The children acquired the sounds of their language at an early age and did not exhibit high percentages of occurrence on targeted phonological processes. (DB)

Focuses on how people from different cultures organize and sequence texts in different ways and how students write essays in a second language that follow the rhetorical patterns of their native language. The article describes the types of essays Chinese students must write for the university entrance exam in their home country. (10 references)…

A study examined the process of grammaticalization in American Sign Language, examining basic principles and patterns and drawing parallels with oral language. More advanced stages of grammaticalization (involving fusion and affecting syntax) are examined in depth, leading to proposal of a temporal-ordering analysis to explain sequencing of verbal…

Looks at patterns of conceptual encoding in American Sign Language (ASL), drawing from adults' retellings of a story. Results suggest that ASL encodes a great deal of conceptual information about motion events, significantly more than English and presumably more than most other spoken languages. (Author/VWL)

Examines word order in French relative clauses, the last clauses to undergo reanalysis to [SVO] word order through Old and Middle French. Analysis shows that although main clauses change from [SVO] to [TVX] to [SVO] in a progressive manner, clauses in "que" show a preference for [TVX] order until the 13th century, with a resurgence in…

Forty monolingual, Puerto Rican, Spanish-speaking children (ages 2-3) were given two tasks designed to obligate production of nominative and object pronouns in both reflexive and non-reflexive forms. In contrast to English-speaking children, these children demonstrated a pattern in which nominate-pronoun use preceded object-case use. (Author/CR)