The attempt to teach deep structure recovery skills to poor readers was unsuccessful, perhaps because of student attitudes. (JH)

An investigation is conducted into the hypothesized notion of the interlanguage system and its effect on language transfer. The interlanguage system is composed of: internal factors (syntax, semantics, and phonology); external factors (sociological and psychological); and the typology of the native language. The investigation looks into: (1)…

A study examined how Japanese language use reflects the hierarchical and compartmentalized society and the psychological attitudes of the speaker through analysis of the verb forms used. Data were drawn from a survey of 500 individuals concerning the choice of verb form in different social situations, and from transcriptions of a housewife's…

Issues in syntactic processing, that aspect of the human sentence comprehension mechanism that recovers a syntactic structure for a given word string, are discussed. In particular, two structural ambiguities in Mandarin Chinese are examined and their successful parsing within the framework of minimal parsing models is discussed. Recent work…

Studies of age differences in second language learning ability are collected along with commentary on the results. The 12 papers describe long and short term studies of children and adults that focus on the optimal age for second language acquisition, the effect of different teaching methods and environments on age differences, and theories that…

This collection of papers from the Summer Institute of Linguistics contains the following articles: (1) "Texmelucan Suprasegmental Phonology," by C. H. Speck; (2) "Some Discourse Features in Siberian Yupik Eskimo," by D. C. and M. R. Shinen; (3) "The Particle t'ah in Slavey Discourse," by C. Harrison and V. Monus; (4) "The Point-Line Dimension in…

This assumption that non-standard speakers are limited in their linguistic ability is examined based on a larger study investigating the speech of working-class adolescents in Sydney, Australia's inner-city areas. Speech samples of four children are presented. An examination of verbal structures reveals that there is a predominance of simple…

Studies on the acquisition of relative clauses are reviewed. Two polarities among a variety of possible approaches are: Slobin's (1971) study that emphasizes acquisition process and learning strategies, and studies like Sheldon's (1974) that emphasize the linguistic structures involved. Early proposals that children experience more difficulty in…

Traditional descriptions of Italian phonology have occasionally suggested that some type of connection exists between "raddoppiamento sintattico" (RS) and the word internal consonant length contrast. (RS is defined as a systematic lengthening of the first consonant of the second word in a two-word sequence in certain syntactic and phonological…

The purpose of this study was to develop a reliable instrument that could be used by teachers and staff in Colorado to assist in the assessment of oral English language, particularly the syntax and the phonology of first-grade children in bilingual bicultural education (BBE). The study also related the scores of the instrument to seven variables:…

This study investigates the effect of mode of expression on the syntactic complexity of writing produced by third-grade children. Approximately 200 samples of writing in the modes of argumentation, exposition, narration, and description were collected from 50 third graders in the Atlanta school district. Syntactic complexity, as measured by length…

More than 250,000 of Fiji's citizens are descendants of Indian indentured laborers of diverse origins. There are still distinct social groups based on language, religion, and place of origin. However, nearly all Fiji Indians speak one language called Fiji Hindustani. Other languages, such as Gujarati, Panjabi, Tamil, and Telugu, are still spoken,…

In speaking a child sometimes makes constructions in which a sequence of separate utterances expresses a semantic relation not expressed by either utterance. These "vertical constructions" are the main point of this study. Previous studies of construction in child language have largely dealt with sentences. In this study, sentences are…

Previous studies dealing with the age at which children acquire constituent order preferences have been in conflict. This study was designed to determine if children with normal language development demonstrate constituent order preferences as early as age three and one-half, or a mean age of four years, one month. To test this competency, an…

This third section of the research project, "The Syntax of Contemporary Brazilian Portuguese," presents a descriptive and historical survey of the evolution of the language. Included in the work are: (1) a summary of historical concern with this subject reflecting literary and linguistic interest, (2) classification and discussion of…