Cape Barren English is clearly the most aberrant dialect of English spoken in Australia. Descended from English sealers, whalers and ex-convicts and their Aboriginal wives, the inhabitants of Cape Barren Island, Tasmania, have lived in relative isolation for the last 150 years or more. Their dialect is not a creolized pidgin; it has a number of…

This paper deals with the counterexamples to the general principles that: (1) a sentence as utterance has only one illocutionary force, in the sense of J.L. Austin; and (2) performative verbs do not normally retain illocutionary force in embedded contexts. Various tests for illocutionary force are applied, such as substitution of another speech…

The relationships between a child's perceptual space and the acquisition of language are discussed in light of the work of Clark, Fillmore, and Chafe. Early language is analyzed as a semantic structure where linguistic ties are established between semantic features and inherent and relational perceptual features. Of these, it is the relational…

After considering the implications of the back-to-the-basics movement, the author concludes that there is little value in going "back" to approaches such as those typical of traditional grammar instruction. Instead, he suggests that sentence combining offers a basic approach to the teaching of writing. An experiment which began with four classes…

In the "Sueddeutsche Zeitung" appear periodically the so-called "Filser Letters," in which current topics are presented in incorrect English, reflecting German structure and vocabulary. These might be used in Secondary Grade II, from a contrastive point of view. A sample "Filserbrief" is presented. (Text is in German.) (IFS/WGA)

This article discusses the ordering of semantic units such as nouns and verbs in Chinese sentences, with references to problems encountered by students of Chinese. (CLK)

This is the seventeenth Spanish lesson in a regular series. It contains a passage from the writings of Pio Baroja. The exercises include questions on the passage and its vocabulary, exercises on the syntax of verbs, with emphasis on the subjunctive, translation exercises from English, and other drills. (Text is in Spanish.) (TL)

Based on Mulder's previous classification of all semiotic systems designed to describe the system of discrete features in human languages, this article explores a further subclassification of the genus language into species. (CLK)

Concludes that teachers should use less difficult reading material when administering oral reading tests for a true picture of a child's syntactic and contextual strategies. (MKM)

Proposes an approach to contrastive linguistics which takes into account syntax and semantics, and discusses the role of such an approach in explaining surface structure differences between English and Chinese sentences of the type: "He is a good pianist" and "I have a bad knee." (AM)

Normalized legal drafting, a mode of expressing ideas in legal documents so that the syntax that relates the constituent propositions is simplified and standardized, and the query method, a question-asking activity that teaches normalized drafting and provides practice, are examined. Some examples are presented. (JMD)

Examines and evaluates 20th-century studies in Zhunyanese linguistics, particularly work accomplished since 1955. Discussion focuses on how the studies were developed, what their current state is, and where problems are. A bibliography follows, covering only those works mentioned in the main text. (Author/KM)

Investigates whether students at different ages write "beyond" their normal syntactic maturity. The authors also discuss whether students at different levels write at a level which is syntactically less mature than their own level and, if so, to what extent they adjust their syntax when told to write for a less mature audience. (Author/RK)

Analysis and comparison of the decoding strategies of 50 Hawaiian Islands dialect speakers in grades four, five, and six showed statistically significant differences in the strategies used by average and below-average readers in each grade and across succeeding grade levels. (JM)

A review of analyses of conditionals (in the philosophical literature) and of topics (primarily in linguistics) reveals that their definitions are very similar. This paper justifies the method of basing semantic analysis of a construction on a cross-linguistic examination of its superficial form. (Author/NCR)