A study compared the rhetoric of letter-writing in English and Japanese, focusing on: (1) relationship between degree of cultural awareness and writing behavior of Japanese students of English as a Second Language (ESL); and (2) relationship of cultural awareness and English proficiency in ESL student writing. Subjects were 120 Japanese college…

This paper explores the range of arguments and sentiments regarding the promotion and/or abolition of types of Chinese scripts. The written representations of Cantonese in Hong Kong, Mandarin in Taiwan as well as Mandarin in China are examined via issues of identity and of discourse both at national and international levels. Chinese scripts are…

Preliminary results of a contrastive discourse analysis project at the University of Oulu, Finland, are reported. The research focuses on cross-cultural encounters between Finnish students of English and native speakers of English from the point of view of students' level of social competence. The students' ability to use discourse strategies is…

This graduate level text on second language learning is divided into three sections. The first two sections provide a survey of the historical underpinnings of second language research in contrastive analysis and error analysis. The third section includes discussions of recent developments in the field. The first section contains articles on the…

The approaches used for reading instruction in the United States and in the People's Republic of China are different and incompatible. In China, English reading is taught intensively, through close-reading or detailed oral analysis of brief texts and with great attention to individual words and phrases. This "bottom-up" processing style,…

The outline of a 2-hour-per-week public speaking course developed over the past 3 years for sophomore English language majors at National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan, is described. The course is built around rhetorical modes, with informative speaking (e.g., process and comparison/contrast), the focus of the first semester and persuasive speaking…

A study examined the development of discourse cohesion in first language acquisition within a functional and cross-linguistic perspective. The analyses focused on how children introduce new referents in discourse across four languages: English, French, German, and Mandarin Chinese. The data base consists of narratives produced by children between…

This is an introductory study of the mutual intelligibility among the various dialects and languages in the Manitowinini family. Specific languages considered include Powhatan, Lenape, Natick, Otchipwe, and Nanticoke. The goal of the study is not merely to comprehend inter-tribal relations better, but also to discover the actual…

This guide highlights problems Vietnamese speakers are likely to have in learning English because of differences between the two languages and suggests ways of helping Vietnamese students of English over difficulties caused by these differences. The first section of the guide provides an overview of the Vietnamese language: the alphabet, word…

The following papers on acquisition of reading skills are included: (1) "Miscue Analysis and Future Research Directions" (Goodman); (2) "Reading in Spanish: Insights from Children's Miscues" (Barrera); (3) "An Investigation of the Oral Reading Behaviors of Native Spanish Speakers Reading in Spanish" (Hudelson); (4) "A Study of Oral Reading in…

A study was conducted in 1972-73 in Berkeley, Rome, Dubrovnik, and Istanbul, in order to examine the differences and similarities in the sequence of the development of locative expressions in English, Italian, Serbo-Croatian, and Turkish. The subjects consisted of 48 two-, three-, and four-year-olds in each field site. Groups of three girls and…

DESIGNED AS A SOURCE OF INFORMATION FOR PROFESSIONALS PREPARING INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS, PLANNING COURSES, OR DEVELOPING CLASSROOM TECHNIQUES FOR FOREIGN LANGUAGE PROGRAMS, A SERIES OF STUDIES HAS BEEN PREPARED THAT CONTRASTS, IN TWO VOLUMES FOR EACH OF THE FIVE MOST COMMONLY TAUGHT FOREIGN LANGUAGES IN THE UNITED STATES, THE SOUND AND GRAMMATICAL…

A knowledge of areas of difficulty as well as their underlying causes is necessary before instructional materials, teaching techniques, and evaluation methods in foreign language instruction can be organized. This research describes three methods of analyzing the problems in foreign language learning and suggests their complementary role in…

This selective bibliography cites about 50 publications ranging in date from 1955 to 1975 with the majority published since 1965. The first part deals with contrastive studies of Indic languages and English and is divided into the following sections: (1) bibliography, (2) books and sections of books, and (3) articles. The second part is dedicated…

This book contains eight papers. (1) "The Uses of Error Analysis and Contrastive Analysis." Use of error linguistics may illuminate normal language processes. This paper outlines procedures and applications of error and contrastive analysis. (2) "The Identification and Evaluation of Errors in Foreign Languages: A Functional Approach." The concern…