Describes a study that examines the effect of an adult-child discourse structure on the word combination produced by 17 children at the single-word utterance level. There was a significant difference between pretest and posttest multiword production for the experimental group of six children, but no difference for the control group. (SED)

Describes a study of 40 monolingual Spanish-speaking Peruvian children in which comprehension of six locative phrases was tested. Results are analyzed in terms of developmental sequence, locative acquisition, the effects of intrinsic label on projective locative comprehension, the effects of linguistic form, and the effects of context. (SED)

Describes research in which a group of proficient speakers of a second language were tested in their ability to identify individual words taken from spoken discourse in both their native language and their second language. Results show that, on the average, they were more proficient in identifying words in their second rather than their first…

Discusses the theoretical foundations of discourse analysis and intonation and emphasizes that intonation has received little attention in the communicative competence or proficiency movements, despite the fact that intonation is a powerful tool for negotiating meaning, managing interaction, and achieving discourse coherence. (CB)

Reports cross-linguistic differences in forward digit span among four-, five-, and six-year-old Chinese and American children. Examines several explanations for the superior performance of Chinese children, and finds that only a temporally limited store hypothesis was supported. (SKC)

Briefly explores the role of the elderly in sociolinguistic theory and research. It is determined that speech accommodation theory is a profitable framework for elucidating the sociolinguistic mechanics of and the social psychological processes underlying intergenerational encounters. (Author/CB)

Relationships between syntactic and semantic aspects of mothers' speech and infants' word acquisition was examined in 27 mother-infant dyads. Results indicated that the more the mother differentiated the complexity of her speech to child and adult, the earlier the child attained 20 words. The more the mother used adult-basic labels in her speech,…

This paper presents linguistic evidence for communication problems in everyday classroom interactions where children are dialect speakers. It also examines the problem of coding language functions for use in experiments. (RB)

Uses examples from advertisements to support the claim that usage opinions have a minimal influence on actual usage, and formulates a new law of usage, stating that when a language change occurs, some people will adopt it, some will oppose it, and most will ignore it. (NH)

A comparative analysis of four studies that emphasized linguistic similarities (rather than differences) between nonstandard speakers and other groups focused on developmental characteristics of the semantic categories encoded by nonstandard speakers compared with other speakers. Implications for language assessment are discussed. (JW)

A review of research on language handicapped, disadvantaged, and other children, indicates that incidental language teaching (natural unstructured interactions between adults and children and which allow adults to transmit new information and give children practice in developing communication skills) is a promising language intervention technique…

Uses an analysis of children's interpretations of a complex episode of social interaction to illustrate three features that distinguish them from robot plans and that form a basis for a theory of the development of social action: human plans (1) are social, (2) operate on interpretations, and (3) are used, not just executed. (FL)

Examines how reference points for the categorical interpretation of high and low (adjectives) were defined by three- to five-year-old children and adults. Shows categorical interpretations of relative terms to be complex dependent. (HOD)

In a comparative study of American English speakers and British English speakers, it was examined whether segmental effects can be used in speech production as cues to syntactic structure. American speakers could use the segmental cues in syntax perception, while British speakers could not. Speakers of British English who were long-term residents…

Written and oral data were evaluated by native speaking judges to ascertain the extent to which they could identify the members of the same native language group on the basis of either phonological or syntactic evidence. Results are presented and other research data are examined to see if they support these findings. (SED)