To determine teachers' attitudes (and reasons for these attitudes) toward the language of children in their schools, 33 teachers in selected infant and junior schools in England and a similar number in the United States representing a cross-section of schools and geographic areas in the two countries were interviewed. More than 90 percent of the…

Claiming that understanding the social context in which words are formed is necessary to appreciate the richness and vitality of language, this book presents an informal, discursive examination of how and why American speech came to be the way it is, and in particular where the words came from. The book follows a roughly chronological format from…

The basic scope of this document is a study of the emergence of a linguistic standard for England. It is stated that this was essentially an unconscious process, a recognition of an existing social situation, which took place during the 15th century. A differentiation is made between speech characterized as standard and that characterized as…

Conversations between mothers and children from three different cultural groups were analyzed to determine culturally preferred narrative elicitation patterns. The three groups included Japanese-speaking mother-child pairs living in Japan, Japanese-speaking, mother-child pairs living in the United States, and English-speaking Canadian mother-child…

Compares the relative effects of speech rate in Korea and the United States for perceptions of the speaker's credibility. Using a 3-way factorial design, data for 120 university students from each country indicate that rapid delivery can enhance one's credibility in the United States and among female Korean speakers. (SLD)

Two studies examined conversations between mothers and children from three different groups to determine culturally preferred narrative elicitation patterns: (1) Japanese-speaking mother-child pairs living in Japan; (2) Japanese-speaking mother-child pairs living in the United States; and (3) English-speaking Canadian mother-child pairs.…