This study investigated the linguistic characteristics of speech addressed to the child and the features of the verbal environment critical for learning language. The study focused on the prosodic and paralinguistic features of adult speech to the young child. Adult speech directed to children was compared to other kinds of systematic speech…

The question of whether children's accentuation strategies are determined by the linguistically established context was studied. A second investigation determined whether the difference between distinctive and nondistinctive information is marked by the speaker's accentuation, focusing the listener's attention upon the crucial information. In the…

Details of conversational behavior can often not be interpreted until the social interaction, including the rights and obligations of the participants, their intent, the topic, etc., has been defined. This paper presents a model of conversation in which the conversational image a person presents in a given conversational situation is a function of…

Communication cannot and should not be studied as the simple, isolated phenomenon known as language, because language occurs in a cultural context and its messages are shaped by nonverbal elements. The basic structure of total communication includes language, paralanguage (vocal-nonverbal communication), and kinesics (communication through…

Identifies indicators of register or style in selected portions of two lectures presented in American Sign Language, and in the interpretations of each made by two interpreters. The indicators used are speaking rate, pausing, syntax, intonation, and lexical choice. Transcripts of data are included in Appendix. (Author/LMO)

Twenty-four college students served as tutors in an examination of the use of paralanguage and nonverbal behavior in presenting a lesson intended for an adult of the tutor's age and for a child. Each subject was tape recorded twice while reading verbatim a lesson from a grade school textbook. Before each taping, the subject was told that the…

The performance and recognition of the act of putting people on involves an awareness and use not only of aspects of the communicative process that hold for all face-to-face interaction, but also of culturally acquired aspects of communication. Teasing and punning are varieties of communicative acts that involve the use of the put-on to accomplish…

This manual presents instructional units designed to offer a break from daily classroom routines in German instruction. These audio-motor units provide variety and listening practice, introduce new vocabulary in context, and present cultural materials in a novel way. Suggestions for classroom use include acting out commands, using gestures,…

Naturalistic impromptu speech is difficult for researchers to analyze because it is difficult to observe. Further, it is impossible to create two similar communicative situations across languages for contrastive analysis. The experimental compromise is the extension of traditional contrastive methodology from elements of grammar to elements of…

This study of a group of American teenagers living in Mexico uses a series of questionnaires to measure their degree of bilingualism (in English and Spanish) and biculturalism (in American and Mexican culture). The main hypotheses of this investigation were: (1) after five or more years in Mexico, the teenage subjects will be at least functionally…

In order to answer the question as to what can be done with video that cannot be done with sound-only recordings, the role of the visual channel of communication in interaction is examined. This examination is based on the experience of foreign language teachers who have been using video in the classroom for five years. The point is made that in…

The process of film making can be thought of as beginning with a person's feeling or concern about something. To communicate this feeling to others, the film maker (sender) must develop an organic unit which will provide a vehicle that can embody the feeling/Story-Organism. The film maker selects and orders a series of signs, images, or events…

Communication researchers would like to know if the quality of a speaker's voice is a reliable indicator of an effective communicator and if voice quality can reveal information about the speaker's intelligence, leadership ability, and personality type. Experimental studies involving over 400 undergraduates at the University of Nebraska sought to…

The experiment discussed in this report investigates cross cultural ability to decode emotive meaning in extra-verbal vocal expressions of mood. The principal expectation of the study is that primitive mood expressions are understood in much the same way in all the countries tested. The moods depicted in the study--angry, sad, happy, flirtatious,…

This textbook part of "The Language of Man" series, is intended for use in grade 11 and above. Its four sections, each of which contains several articles, deal with body language, developing vocabulary, the dialects of English (including features on New England, Midwestern, and Southern speech, Yiddish, Kentucky speech, the talk of the…