On April 5, 1991, Spanish was made the sole official language of Puerto Rico, a move that replaced the 1902 Official Languages Act, which had put English and Spanish on an equal footing on the island, in name if not in practice. This paper analyzes this language status policy decision in terms of both its linguistic and extralinguistic purposes…

This article outlines strategies for the inferring of English scientific terms by Spanish speakers. The article considers factors affecting the process of inference, the use of context morphology, and word origin in inferring word meaning. (SR)

An approach to learning Spanish is presented in this guide that builds on the similarities of alphabet, structure, and vocabulary between Spanish and English. The first two introductory lessons deal with the similarities and differences of the alphabet and sentence structure, and the third covers important words to memorize, including…

This volume of work papers from the Summer Institute of Linguistics includes the following: "Goals and Indirect Objects in Seri" (Stephen A. Marlett); "Seri Kinship Terminology" (Mary B. Moser and Stephen A. Marlett); "Quiegolani Zapotec Phonology" (Sue Regnier); "Role and Reference Grammar" (Robert D. Van…

The validity of results from international assessments depends on the correctness of the test translations. If the tests presented in one language are more or less difficult because of the manner in which they are translated, the validity of any interpretation of the results can be questioned. Many test translation methods exist in the literature,…

This dictionary is a composite of four Philippine Creole Spanish dialects: Cotabato Chabacano and variants spoken in Ternate, Cavite City, and Zamboanga City. The volume contains 6,542 main lexical entries with corresponding entries with contrasting data from the three other variants. A concluding section summarizes findings of the dialect study…

This collection of 16 papers covers theoretical issues and research on interlanguage development and second language acquisition variables. Among the specific topics addressed are: morpheme group interactions, acquisition of complex sentences in English as a second language, uniformity in interlanguage development, Spanish-English basilang,…

The obstacles associated with conducting curricular research in school settings are discussed. A study of bilingual students in the Phoenix area demonstrated the difficulties associated with high absenteeism and drop out rates. In a study of Spanish reading materials, it proved difficult to identify schools where administrators would be willing to…

The frequency of occurrence of compound nominal phrases (CNP) in medical English literature was compared to the frequency of occurrence in general English. Ten medical English and 10 general English sample texts of 2,000 words each were selected to record and analyze the CNPs. CNPs were defined as those items made up of at least two individual…

This final report describes a project in which videotapes of secondary school students performing linguistic and communicative tasks at various levels of French and Spanish instruction were produced. The videotapes are intended to illustrate levels of foreign language acquisition to language teachers. High achieving students were filmed after 2,…

Problems frequently encountered by Americans visiting or studying in Mexico are described. Idiomatic phrases that might confuse an American Spanish speaker are highlighted to illustrate how the Spanish taught in classrooms differs from the Spanish spoken in Mexico. The relevance of nonverbal communication norms to cultural assimilation is examined…

United States history is the topic of this bilingual glossary, one of a series developed to help high school students who are literate in Spanish, but not in English, to meet graduation requirements. The first half of the document contains major American history concepts and definitions of important and commonly used terms, in Spanish. An English…

The use of observation of natural language interaction as a measure of language proficiency and the impact of discourse characteristics on children's use of Spanish and English as measured by length of utterances are examined. The goal of this observational approach to measuring language proficiency is to distinguish between the effects of change…

The question of whether apparent similarity of two languages really facilitates the learning process is raised. Linguistic and pedagogical problems involved in the instruction of languages which resemble each other are discussed. (Text is in French.) (TL)

This is review number 3 for lessons 11-15 in a running series of lessons for speakers of English learning Spanish. The drills deal with relative pronouns, the distinction between the two Spanish verbs "to be,""ser" and "estar," the future tense and the passive voice. (TL)