Linguists of various theoretical backgrounds have likened second language (L2) acquisition to pidginization (Ferguson 1971, Richards 1971, Bickerton 1975a). This paper examines these two processes and suggests areas where a study of the process of second language acquisition in a natural setting might contribute insights to a general theory of…

Weakening and deletion of syllable-final and word-final phonemes, a phenomenon prevalant in Puerto Rican Spanish, was studied. Two of these phonemes, /s#/ and /n#/ were examined for their capacity as plural markers. Data were collected during a one-year ethnographically-oriented study of a single block in the Puerto Rican community in north…

Three experiments were conducted to test the psychological relevance of objectively quantified word collocations. The first experiment showed that perceived frequency of word combinations roughly followed the objective count. Another recurrent quality of words, constructional tendency, was supplemented as independent variable in the two following…

The author reports on a study of the acquisition of English as a second language by Filipino immigrant children in Hawaii, and recommends a comparative study of this kind across four or more Asian linguistic backgrounds and a comparison of the Hawaiian data with data from children of Hispanic backgrounds on the Mainland. The report concludes that…

This paper offers a review of methods of judging the quality of English compositions and demonstrates the need for establishing criteria to judge composition work in a developmental context. Scales of development designed to meet that need are categorized as: stylistic measures that include structure/organization, syntax, verbal competence, reader…

Previous accounts of "generic" have been either too broad in including several sentence types as generic, or too narrow in limiting the definition of generic to the noun or verb alone. This research critically examines data and previous treatments of the generic verb, generic noun, and generic sentence. Because every generic sentence may…

Two English-speaking six-year-olds attending a French-speaking kindergarten in Montreal were tested for the content of their French L2 (second language) utterances. An adaptation of the mean length of utterance (MLU) index was used to judge the order of acquisition in the encoding of semantic-syntactic relations in the second language. The same…

Three stereotypes of male-female behavior as manifested in language were investigated. The stereotypes are: women are more verbose than men, women use more modifiers than men, and women are submissive to men. Eighty students were randomly assigned to one of two conflict resolution conditions--a business situation and an interpersonal…

Pronunciation of words with a fricative content was elicited over a seven-month period from seven English-speaking children ranging in age from 1;5 to 2;3. The recorded speech was analyzed for correct fricative production and substitutions. Results indicate that: (1) overall percentage of correct production is slightly higher in final position…

The effect of a mute "e" on preceding consonant pairs was studied in the oscillographic tapings of the pronunciation of three well-educated Frenchmen. The 68 taped phrase pairs, showing the consonant in a primary and secondary (followed by mute "e") position, are listed. The differences betwee n the length of the first consonant, second consonant,…

Traditional research methods of recording infant verbal behavior, namely, descriptions by a single observer transcribing the utterances of a single infant in a naturalistic setting, have been inadequate to provide data necessary for modern linguistic analyses. The Center for Research on Language and Language Behavior has undertaken to correct this…

To determine whether children's language patterns are learned responses or inherently organized, this study observed children's responses to commands. The 13 subjects were middle class children aged 18 to 30 months. The children were rated as verbally mature, intermediate, or immature; and responses were classified as action, verbal, and relevant.…

Prosodic characteristics of English, German, Spanish, and French are compared and contrasted in this second of a series of articles on general phonetic characteristics of American English. Major attention is given to declarative intonation, place of logical stress in the word and sense group, nature of logical stress, variations in syllable…

This bibliography is a selected listing of approximately 775 books, monographs, journal articles, collections, bibliographies, and unpublished papers on linguistics and the uncommonly taught languages. It includes 119 documents entered by th e ERIC Clearinghouse for Linguistics in the ERIC system in 1967 as well as items which have appeared since…

E. D. Hirsch's "Philosophy of Composition" (in press) reintroduces to communication theorists the "progress of language" thesis first developed, by Henry Bradley and Otto Jespersen around 1900, in the context of oral language. The thesis states that languages--English in particular--tend to become more simplified and flexible…