The role of the particle "o.k." in service encounter dialogue is discussed. A service encounter is defined as a situation of interaction between a "posted" server and a second party (a customer) who invokes the server's participation as an operator of a "serving post." It is suggested that approval or acceptance is often only part of what is being…

Sojourner Truth's "Ain't I a Woman?" speech is presented in this paper and shown to be an effective vehicle for helping students discover the power of language and of literature. The paper first discusses the potentially destructive way English teachers sometimes tell students about "hidden meanings" in long and complex works…

Patterns which partly resemble the proposed "fronting,""voicing," and "stopping" tendencies exist to a statistically significant degree in David Olmsted's large sample of child speech. Instead of the "voicing" pattern that has been suggested, however, voiced stops seem to be favored word-initially, but voiced fricatives are favored word-finally.…

This study examines linguistic form and communication style in working-class and middle-class black preachers of two types: those who are not seminary trained, who preach spontaneously, and those who are seminary trained, who read from a prepared text. Ten sermons were tape-recorded in natural settings at two churches in Washington, D.C. Analyses…

The purpose of this study was to investigate differences among four oral language elicitation probes used to collect language samples from young children. Ten kindergarten, ten first-grade, and ten second-grade children provided the oral language samples. Each class was divided by sex, and five boys and five girls from each grade were randomly…

Written in response to a resolution passed at the 1974 convention of the National Council of Teachers of English, these guidelines are based on the assumption that the sexist usage of language aids in arbitrary assignation of roles to both men and women and would be better omitted. Although directed specifically to editors, these guidelines for…

This book takes a broad look at children learning to communicate with words, sentences, body language, and touch. It shows how children learn to communicate effectively in everyday situations by selecting the most appropriate communication strategies--the verbal and nonverbal language which they feel are best suited to the situation. Part 1…

This study was conducted to investigate the hypothesis that science teaching, properly done, could have an effect on language usage among elementary school students. A population of 14 fourth-grade classrooms was randomly divided into experimental and control groups. All teachers attended workshops for 90 minutes every two weeks throughout the…

It is the contention of this paper that there are general principles which determine the choice of the form of the diminutive and that these principles can and should be included in a first-year college Spanish text. The paper begins with a critical analysis of the traditional rules for diminutive formation, followed by a review of the information…

In order to achieve literacy, children must have mastered the decoding and encoding processes of the language of instruction. Usually this has been accomplished long before the child enters school. However, if the child's language is atypical for any reason, such as cultural or linguistic factors, then the acquisition of literacy requires a…

This paper describes the preliminary results of research currently underway concerning sex-based differences in written composition. Sixty themes written by college-age native speakers of English were chosen for study. The themes were typed exactly as they had been written. No corrections were made. They were numbered alphabetically by the names…

The aim of this paper is to clear up some of the confusion that has developed around interpretations of Bernstein's concept of code-distribution. After a rapid review of the main dimensions of linguistic variation within a given society, with particular attention to sociolectal and register variation, 'codes' are examined and compared with…

Knowledge about how language works is often considered superfluous by the public. In general, the public image of language is that language is in a serious decline and that outside influences on language have led it astray, views that are supported by false assumptions about language on the part of writers. Writers in newspapers and magazines note…

This paper is primarily concerned with Basil Bernstein's sociolinguistic account of school failure. The first section describes some earlier work relevant to his theories. In the second section, Bernstein's sociolinguistic codes thesis is described, and an attempt is made to show that it suffers from the merging of two logically distinct strands…

Designed as a research tool for teachers of writing, this annotated bibliography describes texts and readers which pertain to college level English courses (with indications of those suitable for use in high schools). Each entry has been placed in one or more of the following categories: grammar and basic usage, composition, advanced composition…