This paper addresses problems facing endangered languages and strategies for maintaining Native languages. The most serious case involves languages whose last fluent speakers are elderly or already gone. Speakers of severely endangered languages no longer constitute speech communities. They cannot interact with other speakers because other…

In recognition of a need in the Buffalo area, the State University of New York at Buffalo (SUNY-Buffalo) established the Japanese Language and Culture Program for Business People and Students (JLCP) within the university's Center for Critical Languages. JLCP is a 3-year, 6-semester certificate program open to anyone with at least a high school…

A discussion of the situation of Idoma, a Nigerian language, begins with different accounts of the language's origin, referring to both local legend and cosmology. It then proceeds to a review of modern linguists' efforts, since 1927, to classify the language. A statistical overview contains information on the number of speakers of Idoma as a…

Training courses for teachers of English as a Second Language (ESL) at the elementary and secondary levels, implemented in Brunei in 1989, are described, and proposals for a new teacher certification level are examined. The first course leads to a diploma in elementary/secondary ESL teaching, and is characterized by both written and practical work…

Courses in English for special purposes, particularly in business, should be extended to native speakers of English. Problems of intercultural communication occur not only when people operate across linguistic boundaries but also when those people share a common language, particularly as new non-native varieties of English are becoming more…

By comparing the language performance of native speakers of Mandarin Chinese and English to English second language performance across similar speech events, a study suggests a methodology for discovering potential areas of pragmatic transfer. Subjects were 6 native American English speakers and 12 native Chinese-speakers, 6 using Chinese and 6…

The research reported in this paper is concerned with three questions. Are the processes of language development complete by the time children begin school? What is the order of the emergence of control of grammatical rules? And is that order similar for first and second language learners? The data used in the analysis come from a project centered…

A study was conducted to assess the ability of children to distinguish native from non-native English and to determine the age at which they reach the adult level of recognition ability. A brief passage containing the segmental phonemes of English was recorded by ten native and ten non-native speakers of Standard American English. The tape was…

Reflections on past and future uses of intelligence tests are presented. Three current approaches to intelligence tests are described: (1) neural efficiency, which relates the speed or quality of functioning of the neural system to test results; (2) information processing--cognitive micro-processes used in solving test items; and (3)…

Using a comparative rhetoric model, a study examined the discourse behavior of native speakers of American English conducting peer review discussions in English and that of native speakers of Chinese performing the same task in Chinese. Data are drawn from audiotape recordings of peer review discussions of eight college students, conducted in…

A study of essays on a single topic (capital punishment) written by 22 American high school students and 30 second-year Japanese college students investigated: cultural differences in organizational patterns in argumentative essays; comparative use of rational and affective appeals; differences in content of rational and affective appeals;…

A 5-item rating scale was developed for the New York City schools to determine eligibility for English as a Second Language instruction in Category C exceptional students exempted from testing. Most students follow a curriculum of daily living skills, and many are nonverbal. The test was piloted with 163 students including severely, trainable, and…

This collection of conference papers includes: "When Does Teacher Talk Work as Input?"; "Cultural Input in Second Language Learning"; "Skilled Variation in a Kindergarten Teacher's Use of Foreigner Talk"; "Teacher-Pupil Interaction in Second Language Development"; "Foreigner Talk in the University…

Research findings regarding speech errors made by second language learners and affective reactions to native speakers as a basis for error correction are considered. A research design is presented for investigating sensitivities to 15 types of grammatical errors typically made in speech by American learners of French. Findings of the research are…

Foreign language teaching methodology is confronted with the problem of teaching Spanish to English-dominant native Spanish speakers. Linguistic documentation is lacking to accurately evaluate the linguistic competence of the bilingual student, documentation also useful in the preparation of adequate instructional materials. This paper describes…