Examines whether a discourse consistent with functional sentence perspective (FSP) theory, which predicts how units of information should be distributed in a sentence and how sentences should be related in a discourse, is more memorable and readable than one contradictory to FSP. (HOD)

Discusses the results of an examination of the scripts used in eight television programs popular with teenagers that indicate that viewers are exposed to short, simple sentences and largely unsophisticated language structures. (AEA)

Findings of sociolinguistic research that can be used by language teachers to elicit meaningful and authentic communication from their students are reviewed, including such factors as nonverbal cues, situation, intent, mood, and cultural norms. (MSE)

Discusses the current meager state of knowledge of sex differentiation in language variation and concludes that poor theorizing and inadequate methodology are to blame. Describes a study of pronoun usage by male and female Japanese speakers to show that research on sex differentiation in language is possible. (EKN)

Examines the effects of having both a semantic and a superficial perceptual category for organizing lists of words in free recall. Discusses the effect of individual difference characteristics, such as personality characteristics of the subject, on the results. (EKN)

Criticizes some recently published views on the difficulty of raising children bilingually (e.g., tolerance of children's deviations from adult speech, the influence of friends, and finding an adequate vocabulary for a foreign environment). Also discusses the use of children as subjects in language research. (EKN)

Studies of second language acquisition often employ analytical concepts defined relative to the target language. This practice can be a serious obstacle to investigation of crucial questions about the nature of the learners' languages. This comparative fallacy's drawbacks are illustrated through a framework designed to study interlanguage…

Discusses the variation and stability of mother speech patterns across individuals. Analyzes the functionally coded speech of 11 mothers and provides a typology of mother styles, based on the intentions of mothers to direct or converse with their children. (EKN)

Reports on a study that analyzed the oral language skills of four-year-old children in day care centers as they described a picture and told a story from pictures in a wordless picture book. (HOD)

Different experimental techniques for empirical assessment of children's linguistic ability have produced conflicting evidence. A number of such contradictions are discussed, in the context of an analysis of the potential weaknesses, and consequent requirements, of both comprehension and production tasks. (A commentary by P. L. Harris appears on…

Examines theoretical and practical issues in ESL testing including inadequacies of definitions of language proficiency with respect to test taker characteristics; empirical evidence in support of relationship between test taker characteristics and performance on language tests; and guidelines to dealing with test taker characteristics and language…

Study examines possibility that certain story constituents are better recalled than others, suggesting a universal, underlying representation for a story by controlling for semantic content of settings, initiating events, internal responses, consequences, and reactions across versions of same story. Results show subjects transformed syntactic form…

Describes an experiment which compares the effectiveness of two key word techniques of vocabulary acquisition and gives the original 228-line program which was used. The program is written in BASIC to be run on Commodore CBM or PET machines with one disk drive. Eight references are listed. (MER)

Reviews the methodological issues raised by previous research into the language used by thought-disordered and nondisordered schizophrenics. (FL)

Examines basic properties of selected orthographies of various languages and suggests that they play a crucial role in transferring reading ability across languages, especially if the language systems are quite different. (FL)