This paper describes multiple Estonian-Russian language contacts in Estonia. For synchronic microsociolinguistic research it is usual to concentrate on the impact of a sociolinguistically dominant language A on an immigrant/minority language B. In the Soviet setting, the dominant language was usually Russian (despite Russians being a minority).…

A model for describing the oral language competence of bilingual speakers is presented. The model provides for the evaluation of the speaker on the phonological (based on native-speaker judgment), morphological (based on the formal written language), syntactic (based, in part on the complexity of the constructions used) and semantic pragmatic…

An organizing framework is presented that can help integrate the large mass of apparently disparate work on written language. The starting point of the paper was collections of articles of reading, writing, and literacy, which seemed not to have a conceptual framework. Ways are discussed that knowledge from linguistics as an academic discipline…

This paper attempts to show that certain structural relations that contribute to creating text in spoken and written monologue also bind segments together in conversation. Methodology is based on a model of text as consisting of sequences of a problem-solution structure. Analysis of texts from 12 purpose-oriented telephone conversations focuses on…

There has been a consensus among linguists that laryngeal and superlaryngeal nodes are located under the root node and place node is under the superlaryngeal node. However, there is very little consensus on where manner of articulation features belong. A phonological analysis of the spreading and delinking process occurring in the educated Spanish…

The supplementary activities guide was written to coordinate with a kindergarten textbook in English as a Second Language (ESL) used in the Houston (Texas) Independent School District. It contains eight instructional units with worksheets, alternative activities, and blackline masters for convenient reproduction. Each unit consists of a series of…

Designed to assess a reader's comprehension of items differing in contrastive vocal stress, this test consists of 64 items divided evenly between eight sentence types: declarative active, declarative passive, interrogative, and imperative, with each in a positive and negative form. The element of contrastive stress is placed on nouns functioning…

It is proposed that many students are unable to distinguish between unguarded writing patterns and literate or expository ones, and it is becoming increasingly necessary in writing instruction to clarify and impose the distinction between these patterns. This problem is confounded by current trends toward exclusively spoken language in the…

Storytelling, a creative art form with a long history and considerable instructional potential, is increasingly regarded in schools and communities as literature. Recent papers and articles in the ERIC database discuss the use of storytelling in the classroom to develop language abilities, literature appreciation, critical thinking and…

Speech communication teachers can assist students in gaining more facility with language by helping them become active learners or problem solvers through: (1) experiencing an event; (2) reflecting on this experience which leads to (3) the formation of abstract concepts and generalizations about what has been learned; and finally (4) incorporating…

The study compared the language development of 72 learning disabled (LD) and 72 normal students at intermediate and secondary age levels (9-12 and 12-15 years of age). Ss were asked to respond to questions after viewing two films, and oral language samples were tape recorded and analyzed to examine syntactic and vocabulary development. Results…

A study investigated the effect of pausing, a component of speech speed, on the listening comprehension of second language learners. Groups of subjects at two ability levels listened to taped versions of two brief lectures recorded with four different combinations of speed and pausing conditions. Comprehension was measured by means of cloze tests…

It is held that academic learning, beginning with speech mastery, is the natural, necessary, and most legitimate core of every child's nursery curriculum. And no subject matter is more academic in nature than the mastery of spoken and written language. However, as intellectually challenging as the learning of first language may be, it is generally…

This study focuses on the development of the ability to talk about events in time -- to specify occurrence in time with reference to the present as well as to locate events in time with reference to each other. The child's learning of how to mark the different kinds of relationships between two events is discussed. This study of current relevance…

Defining peak as the climax of discourse, this paper argues that it is important to identify peak in order to get at the overall grammar of a given discourse. The paper presents case studies in which four instances of peak in narrative discourses occur in languages from four different parts of the world. It also illustrates the occurrence of a…