Five new strategies are proposed to help language teachers understand statistical studies. Each strategy is discussed with appropriate tables, figures, and examples drawn from recent articles of the "TESOL Quarterly." (18 references) (Author/LB)

Mental terms in mothers' and their childrens' speech at two and three years were studied to examine relationships between maternal and child use. Nineteen mother and child dyads were videotaped for 1 hour on each of 2 days when children were 2;0 and again for 2 1-hour sessions on separate days when they were 3;0. Mental terms were noted. (JL)

This study examined age differences in the extent to which children infer and use a speaker's interpersonal goal to understand speech acts and to examine age differences in the extent to which children select responses that carry implications appropriate to the speaker's interpersonal goal. (15 references) (JL)

This investigation examined the possibility that features necessary for morphology, such as person and number, are absent from the underlying grammars of specifically language-impaired children. (46 references) (JL)

Acoustic analysis of two vowels thought to be merged in Utah English suggest that there are small but consistent differences between them. A matched guise experiment provides evidence that when the vowels are merged hypercorrection is involved. (33 references) (LB)

Describes the natural language computer program, "Vinci." Explains that using an attribute grammar formalism, Vinci can simulate components of several current linguistic theories. Considers the design of the system and its applications in linguistic modelling and second language acquisition research. Notes Vinci's uses in linguistics…

Explores the relationship between cooperative behavior and public requests voiced in different Danish accents. Implications of the findings for applied settings are given, as are their relevance for studies in language attitudes. (51 references) (VWL)

Found dissociations between regular and irregular inflectional processes in the formation of English past tenses, German noun plurals, and German participles. Children's inflectional errors include using regular patterns for irregular forms. Some linguistic processes, such as forming compound words, are sensitive to the distinction between regular…

Reviews five major findings of language research about the effect of explicit instruction and relates them to second-language teaching and learning, covering such areas as the route of acquisition, psycholinguistic readiness, error correction, classroom versus nonclassroom learning, and access to comprehensible and meaningful input. (37…

Yanggu, Anxiang, and Yuanyang diminutives and Cantonese familiar name formation are examined in the light of recent understanding about the role of prosodic categories in phonology and morphology. The results lend strong support to the growing body of research in prosodic morphology, especially the pioneering work of McCarthy and Prince. (52…

After setting definitions of pragmatics, prosody, and nonverbal communication, this paper reviews politeness theories and research in these fields, discussing their implications for teaching. It is posited that learners whose first language and native culture are more similar to the target language (TL) and culture are more likely to experience TL…

In conversations between bilinguals, each of whom is a learner of the other's language, two different local patterns of codeswitching may emerge: compliance and mutual convergence. It is argued that a pattern of compliance is ultimately more accommodating that convergence, contrary to the claims of Speech Accommodation Theory. (20 references)…

Previous research has been inconsistent in supporting any one model of idiom comprehension. This study found evidence of the effect of familiarity on reading times for sentences containing idioms, as well as new evidence that literalness affects reading times and that both familiarity and literalness exert interactive effects. (22 references)…

Addresses the issue of whether there exists a matrix language to a code-mixed (CM) sentence, or whether no feasible linguistic analysis can reliably assign a matrix language to a CM sentence. The examination draws on natural conversations involving Chinese-English CM in Singapore. (41 references) (GLR)

Connor comments on Raimes' research on the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) essay component, the Test of Written English (TWE), and the practices of the Educational Testing Service. Raimes' response is directed toward the TWE research agenda. (five references) (Author/LB)