This study provides the first large-scale quantitative exploration of mathematical language use in upper elementary U.S. classrooms. Our approach employs natural language processing techniques to describe variation in teachers' and students' use of mathematical language in 1,657 fourth and fifth grade lessons in 317 classrooms in four districts…

Purpose: This study examines the effect of age on language use with an automated analysis of digitized speech obtained from semistructured, narrative speech samples. Method: We examined the Cookie Theft picture descriptions produced by 37 older and 76 young healthy participants. Using modern natural language processing and automatic speech…

Reports experiments in which college students provided color names for a series of color stimuli, matched color names with the same stimuli, and described colors represented by a series of elaborate color terms. Sex-related differences were found in the matching task. Women used more elaborate descriptions than men. (Author/AMH)

Shows that hesitation phenomena are intricately connected with propspective and retrospective speech production tasks and mark critical points in processing. Two major hesitation categories exist: stalls and repairs. Stalls head off errors and represent error-free output; repairs take care of errors already committed. English and German examples…

Based on a model developed by Brown and Levinson (1978), this thesis examines one feature underlying appropriate language use--politeness--as it affects the discourse of native English speakers in three situations. The three situations and speakers involved are: (1) British speakers in a British public library, (2) American speakers in an American…

Describes adjustments in speech patterns made by two- and three-year-olds when talking to their 14-month-old siblings and compares these changes with those made by mothers addressing their babies. Individual differences between the children indicate two types of influence on the adjustments made--pragmatic and emotional. (EKN)

A study was undertaken to separate elements of maternal speech heavily influenced by the children's language levels from those representing the mothers' consistent style or strategy for "teaching" language. A striking similarity was found between speech mothers used with their daughters and that used with their daughters' friends. (MSE)

A study was conducted to determine the relationship between maternal input to early language learners and language acquisition and to answer the following questions: (1) Does nursery language used with the child change after he begins to talk? (2) Is there reason to believe that the child's speech is influenced by or influences the mother's…

Examined meaning of interruptions in conversations of 56 adolescent girls conversing with their mothers or same-gender friends. Found that girls used more confirming interruptions and rejecting simultaneous speech than mothers. Functions of interruptions and simultaneous speech were the same with mothers and friends. Results suggest that increased…

Details a survey of 264 Canadian elementary school teachers to determine their views on the influence of television advertising language on students' ability to learn standard English usage. Calls for research to ascertain whether the cause and effect relationship seen by a significant portion of the respondents has a basis in fact. (RBW)

When 20 highly talkative and 20 much less talkative preschool children were measured for articulation, grammar, receptive syntax, and sentence repetition, the performances of the highly talkative children were significantly superior on all measures. (Author/RL)

A study investigated whether gender differences in proscribed language behavior, attitudes, and beliefs would emerge from an anonymous self-report questionnaire. A total of 87 men and 87 women enrolled in 6 sections of a required sophomore course at a regional southeastern university voluntarily completed the questionnaire which was designed to…

Parallel designs were used to test the hypotheses that (1) strongly assertive forms would be attributed relatively more often to females, and (2) syntactic forms associated with males would be rated more intelligent and those associated with females less so. The results of the study were consistent with each of these predictions, suggesting that…

This paper examines the speech performance characteristic of the college lecturer. One of the most organized forms of speech performance, the lecture functions as a referential monologue and has a necessarily topical focus. Specifically dealt with are the ways in which lecturers introduce new topics, link together topical utterances, and close out…

This study examined the way medical clinicians speak about numbers in orally presenting the results of research. Presentations by a sample of eight physicians and surgeons were selected and the manner in which numerical data on the slides were referred to was analyzed. Overall in the sample, it was four times more common to speak about data on…