This study used a prospective community-based sample to describe patterns and predictors of language development from 4 to 7 years in verbal children (IQ = 70) with autism spectrum disorder (ASD; n = 26-27). Children with typical language (TD; n = 858-861) and language impairment (LI; n = 119) were used for comparison. Children with ASD and LI had…

This study aims to exemplify how language teaching can benefit from learner corpus research (LCR). To this end, this study determines how L1 and L2 English speakers with diverse L1 backgrounds differ with respect to adjective amplification, based on the "International Corpus of Learner English" (ICLE) and the "Louvain Corpus of…

Purpose: The current study was designed to (a) describe average hourly Language Environment Analysis (LENA) data for preschool-age Spanish--English bilinguals (SEBs) and typically developing monolingual peers and (b) compare LENA data with mean length of utterance in words (MLUw) and total number of words (TNW) calculated on a selected sample of…

A study examined advice-giving interactions between Swedish district nurses and patients, comparing these sequences with parallel interactions between British health visitors and first-time mothers in previous research. Analysis focused on how advice-giving is organized in the settings, including how advice is initiated and designed, its…

A comparison is presented of a mother's language to her Down Syndrome two-year-old and his normally developing twin. When interacting with the Down Syndrome twin, the mother used shorter mean length of utterance, greater type-token ratio, more confirmations, more verbal directives, fewer yes-no and true questions, and more directive questions.…

Argues that some important aspects of listening as an interactive skill have been neglected in second-language teaching, including the receipt tokens "yeah,""mm hm," and "mm," and that such items should be taught as part of the development of conversational skills. Characteristics of these items' placement in talk sequences, prosodic shape, pause…

This study investigated similarities and differences in the requesting behavior presented by American and European speakers in English and Spanish. Two specific research questions were addressed: (1) whether European or American speakers and native or non-native speakers use the same request strategies in English and Spanish; and (2) whether…

A study investigated the patterns of question use in Mandarin Chinese-speaking parents' and caregivers' interactions with children, and how they characterize social class differences. Subjects were 10 children, aged 21-23 months, and their families, selected from immunization records in Beijing, China. Parents were all native speakers of Mandarin…

This "insider's guide" to American and Japanese communication and misunderstanding is based on the premise that Americans and Japanese have different goals in communication; the American goal is to make messages negotiated between individuals explicit, while the Japanese goal is to keep messages implicit and assumed within the group. In…

A study examined interactional patterns in interviews that characterize elicitation of one text type, description, including type/mixture of questions asked by the fieldworker and the speaker's response. Subjects (n=137) were of three ethnic groups and three socioeconomic levels. Results suggest questioning strategy can have strong, predictable…

A study investigated the pragmatic success and failure of requests when expressed in Portuguese or in English. Subjects were 40 college students who were administered a discourse-completion instrument in 2 versions (English and Portuguese) comprised of 10 situations, or 5 pairs in which each pair was related to a different social situation.…

A study of two contemporary American novels, told in first-person narration, explored the distribution and function of relative clauses in literary narrative. For comparative purposes, data from oral conversation, 2 written expository works, 6 other novels, and 20 short oral narratives were also considered. Three types of relative clause are…

A study investigated the ways in which native and non-native speakers of Kiswahili close conversations. Native speaker data were obtained from observation and field notes, recorded face-to-face interactions, recorded telephone conversations, reconstructed dialogues, and televised plays. Non-native speaker (American) data were drawn from role-play…

A study investigated the production of conventional conversational openings by five advanced learners of Kiswahili with experience in the Kiswahili speaking environment. Native speakers of Kiswahili usually engage in lengthy openings including several phatic inquiries (PIs) and phatic responses (PRs). The number and manner in which the PIs and PRs…

This study investigated similarities and differences in Egyptian Arabic and American English refusals, using a modified discourse completion test (DCT) consisting of three requests, three invitations, three offers, and three suggestions. Each situation included one refusal to a person of higher status, one to a person of equal status, and one to a…