Describes the wide variety of personal statements and "mini-poems" on personalized license plates. Suggests that having students collect such statements might be a way of teaching them about the creative potential of language. (EL)

Offers an explanation of metaphor comprehension and the processes of comparison it entails. Describes a strategy that focuses on the processes of comparison, intended for regular students in junior high school or gifted middle school students. Presents segments of an actual lesson illustrating the strategy. (JK)

A biblical story about the mispronunciation of Shibboleth introduces a discussion of the notion of cultural codes and cultural traits relating to language, science, and popular culture that commonly mark an individual as an insider or an outsider of a particular culture. (MSE)

Direct links between Australian English and the Australian culture are drawn. The author proposes ways in which a linguistically precise and culturally revealing study of linguistic phenomena such as expressive derivation, illocutionary devices, and speech act verbs are related to Australian society, history, culture, and "national…

Describes the influences which have affected the changing sociolinguistic setting for tribal Aborigines in the Northern Territory, Australia. The effects of various governmental and educational policies on language development are highlighted, and the need for deliberately planned, implemented, and monitored language policy is suggested.…

Presents the design of a long-term project aimed at facilitating communication among social scientists in different countries by the production of a new kind of encyclopedia, called the INTERCOCTA Encyclopedia. The project does not attempt to standardize or legislate terminology. (JDH)

Experiences in the arts can help students develop positive attitudes towards learning. The relationship of language and the arts to the development of perceptual skills is explored. The processes of learning and its application to developing concepts in music and movement are discussed. (DF)

Presents study in which transcripts of speeches were linguistically analyzed for gender-specific features. Shows that a combination of 20 features could account for 99% of between-gender variance, permitting 100% gender prediction accuracy. (MS)

Early male and female differences in the functional use of language were investigated by coding verbal interactions of preschool children during play sessions with same-sex peers. Findings were consistent with research showing that males talk more and are more assertive in their social interactions than are females. (Author/GC)

In this article, an attempt is made to show how the language of motivation in infant classrooms might be researched. It investigates the relationship between the text that pupils and teachers produce as a story in their school life and the narrative voice of the researcher. (Author/CT)

The authors document an experimental writing program for honors and remedial students at the College of the Virgin Islands. The program, which involved linguistic analyses of Creole and English, included discussion of the political, sociological, and psychological dimensions of language use and writing in and about both languages. (Author/CT)

Reports on a study that used two approaches to examine how words are used to create meaning in written discourse in order to illuminate the differences among a group of essays written by 12 developing writers. (HTH)

Discusses Mather's "Companion" in view of the thesis that Puritan rhetoric can be considered a genre only in the sense that it was a developing or a becoming, rather than a fixed entity. (MS)

Reacts to the essays in "Alice in Genderland," a publication of the National Association of Teachers of English, that are concerned with the ways in which society's sexually differentiated view of "normality" is mediated to children in schools. (HOD)

Describes the use of Arabic in the news media, worship places, and schools of Arabic-speaking immigrants to the United States in the early 1900s and in the 1980s. Predicts that Arabic usage among 1980s immigrants will follow a pattern, noted among early immigrants, in which Arabic usage gradually diminishes. (KH)