Human beings who have been forced to acquire language through non-auditory modalities characteristically display an impoverished syntactic system. I.M. Schlessinger (1970) has shown, for example, that users of sign language have difficulty in communicating syntactic relations such as "subject of main verb,""object of the verb," and "indirect…

Analyzes an Afro-American sermon and a disputed speech by a Black political leader to mixed audience. Dialect alternants signal switching between contrasting styles in both. Conversational inference is shown to depend not only on grammar, lexical meanings, and conversational principles, but also on constellations of speech variants, rhythm, and…

This article summarizes a study (Odlin 1978) using variable rules analyses to describe the contraction patterns of six Mexican students of English as a second language. (CFM)

Analysis of the babbling of five infants indicated that between 14 and 40 percent of utterances recurred in particular contexts with a greater than expected frequency, suggesting that babbling is not entirely random but contains consistent sound-meaning relationships that are not adult-modeled. (Author/CB)

Observation of reticent (N=7) and normal talkative (N=7) kindergarten students with their teachers during classroom "sharing time" indicated that reticent children engaged in less complex speech than their peers, speaking more often about objects in the "here and now," speaking about one topic at a turn, and speaking in shorter…

Considers several ways in which texts are used in English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) classrooms where communicative skills are taught. These texts fail to offer the EFL student the possibility of personal involvement of the sort that would be normal with a text in the native language. Suggestions are made for using texts in a way which encourages…

Discusses the signals that are used to create, sustain, and end conversational involvement in two different languages, with examples provided of paralinguistic attention getters, linguistic conversation initiation signals, "in-tune" signals, and "face-saving" signals from a study of English and Greek. (CB)

Most second language texts not only do not emphasize negotiation of meaning, but are also structured to mislead learners in their attempt to express meaning (in the learners' native language). Examples from German, Spanish, and French are used to illustrate the need for second language learning to stand alone and independently from the native…

Comparison of normal-speaking (N=20) and misarticulating (N=20) four- to six-year-olds and adults (N=16) revealed that adults were significantly more accurate in detecting mispronunciations than either group of children, while performance between the two groups of children was similar. Words that children found most difficult were also those on…

Comparison of maternal speech to three-month-olds between American (N=20) and Japanese (N=20) mother-infant dyads revealed that infant gaze affected the intended functions of maternal speech differently for the two groups. Cultural differences were also seen in the nature of function-form and function-referent relationships. (Author/CB)

Examination of the transition to purposive use of intonation with single words for two infants revealed that both clearly used rising tones to ask questions by 1.5 years of age and demonstrated widespread and gradual grammatical use of intonation. (Author/CB)

Sentences evoked from three- to five-year-olds (N=16), analyzed for errors (particularly copying-without-deletion), showed errors when: the subject noun phrase (NP) contained a relative clause, the relative clause had an object gap, and the relative clause was long. (Author/CB)

Focuses on the language used by elementary mathematics teachers and its relationship to students' understanding of mathematical concepts, as well as their misconceptions. Describes eight situations in which the use of precise, formal mathematical terms could be replaced by informal language, particularly when introducing new concepts. (TW)

Analysis of research involving reading comprehension ability in a second language shows that problems with illocutionary force, logical connectors, and modifiers indicate that many students are either unable to draw on a culturally appropriate memory schema for reading comprehension or have preconceived notions about word meaning that prevent them…

Explores the discourse and speech acts used by Black children between the ages of 5 and 10 in one Midwestern community. Examines the rhetorical devices of teasing, name-calling, riddles, and joke-stories and hypothesizes as to the functional significance of each in the cultural environment. (SA)