Ninety-six children were administered an orthographic test as preschoolers and two measures of non-phonemic phonological awareness in mid-kindergarten. Both phonological measures and the orthographic measure added significant variance to grade 1 word reading. The orthographic measure contributed to variance in reading vocabulary and reading…

The inquiry science process provides a perfect opportunity for students to practice relational meaning in language. As students design their experiments, negotiate their ideas with peers, and share their data and conclusions, they sharpen both their reading and written communication skills. This process needs to be mediated by having the teacher…

Patient information leaflets are an important adjunct to verbal exchange between doctor and patient. Their value is dependent upon whether they contain useful information from the viewpoint of the patient and are easily understood. We developed a framework based upon linguistic theory for assessing the quality of written patient information and…

This paper provides an analysis of texts containing the noun "the Balkans" and the adjective "Balkan" in a small corpus of approximately 80 journalistic texts from different south Slavic regions currently available online. The texts were published over the last 10 years. The term "the Balkans" and its derivations…

The relatedness of phonological coding to the articulatory mechanisms in visual word recognition vary in different writing systems. While articulatory suppression (i.e., continuous verbalising during a visual word processing task) has a detrimental effect on the processing of Japanese words printed in regular syllabic Khana script, it has no such…

The 13 articles in this serial issue are as follows (with all titles translated into English); "Swiss Sociolinguistics--Sociolinguistics in Switzerland" (Iwar Werlen); "Public Space, Medias, and Identities of Language. Reference Points for an Analysis of the Swiss Imaginary Collective"; (Jean Widmer); "Anthropological and…

This concordance study uses a corpus of applied linguistic articles to explore how and why accomplished academic writers use quotations and citations, specifically the word 'say,' and analyses the lexical and grammatical choices they make. Citations were examined in almost 50,000 words from 11 articles to document use by experts writers. Overuse…

A study investigated the features of discourse in the written student-teacher interaction in dialogue journals. It was assumed that such an activity would encourage the negotiation of meaning and roles, and that the data would provide evidence of that negotiation. Data were drawn from 32 journals written by 16-to-18-year-old students in an Italian…

With accounts of how telling children stories forged a special bond between teacher and child, this book provides practical guidance in the use of storytelling to enhance a language program, improve read-aloud sessions, develop oral and written communication skills, foster an appreciation of good literature, and stimulate the growth of active…

Language and literacy issues in India are reviewed in terms of background, steps taken to combat illiteracy, and some problems associated with literacy. The following facts are noted: India has 106 languages spoken by more than 685 million people, there are several minor script systems, a major language has different dialects, a language may use…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the extent to which the formal teaching of grammatical rules would affect the writing quality of sixth graders. Comparison was made between students of two University Lab Schools located in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The study was limited to the observation of written expression, because of limited…

Funded through the Ohio Disadvantaged Pupil Program Fund, the Columbus Public Schools' Instructional Aide (IA) Program served 309 kindergarten children and 1,793 first-grade students during the 1988-89 school year. The goal of the IA program was to provide an educational support program for underachieving pupils. Instructional aides were trained…

This document presents the view that for teaching and learning written language, teachers and students in bilingual education programs must have autonomy and must be able to appropriately account for local conditions. Upper-level government policies should be broad, non-specific, and linked to appropriate general goals. Diverse and complex local…

An analysis of the nature of the lexical borrowing of Icelandic from American English focuses on the phonological processes occurring in the adoption of American English forms. Background information on borrowing in Icelandic is provided, and a crucial distinction is made between aural borrowing and loanwords from written sources. The role of…

A discussion on the nature of language argues the following: (1) the concept of a closed and finite rule system is inadequate for the description of natural languages; (2) as a consequence, the writing of variable rules to modify such rule systems so as to accommodate the properties of natural language is inappropriate; (3) the concept of such…