This study examined the degree to which readers' affective responses to levels of language usage reflect their attitudes toward language usage. The subjects, 51 college juniors and seniors, read nine simulated newspaper interviews and completed five semantic differential scales that indicated their impressions of the interviewee's personality and…

Previous interpretations of male/female discourse were examined in light of new data generated from a study of intercultural mixed-sex dyads. Eleven dyads, each consisting of a Chinese and an American subject, were videotaped in 30-minute conversations about courtship in different cultures. The tapes were content analyzed to obtain information on…

A review of the various grammatical traditions from traditional grammar through structural linguistics to transformational grammar points out that traditional and transformational grammar are neither mutually exclusive nor entirely contradictory. Implications drawn from modern inquiry include the necessity for reading and writing teachers to guide…

In comparing the written and oral English syntax of Mexican-American bilingual and Anglo-American monolingual students, this study sought to learn specifically whether these two groups of students represent the same speech population in English syntactic use. A total of 70 subjects were randomly selected for the four groups (bilingual and…

The following conference papers are included here: (1) "Language Typology and Contrastive Linguistics," by Laszlo Dezso and William Nemser, summarizes the history of typology and discusses the application of typology to research on language acquisition. (2) "Contrastive Aspects of British and American English with Implications for…

Syntactical rule differences in black dialect that can be more helpful to young adolescents' perceptions than the corresponding rules in standard English were studied. The syntactical rule in black dialect that was identified as being more explicit than the corresponding rule in standard English was the invariant "be" verb form (as in…

In the late 1800's, Dioclesian Lewis developed and introduced into the schools his new concept of physical education. Dr. Lewis thought in terms of preventing illness and maintaining bodily strength and health through physical fitness. His "new gymnastics" were based on programs of exercise movements. Employing light equipment suitable…

Examining the fragmentation and Americanization that pervades education in Micronesia, this paper explores the causes of the fragmentation, which represent a local attempt to modernize education, and the local belief in the superiority of American culture. The consequences of a fragmented world view have been confusion between educational aims and…

The debate over American dominance of mass media exports gained new momentum in the late 1980s, when the European Community moved toward restricting the number of television programs imported from non-European countries. Research suggests that Europeans enjoy American television programs such as "Dallas" because the series embody basic…

A discussion of the movement to make English the only official language in the United States' multilingual society examines the nature and scope of the movement and draws instructional and language policy implications for teaching situations involving language-minority populations. It draws a relationship between the politics of language diversity…

The reduction of existing lexical items to shorter forms has generally been discussed under the headings of "acronyms,""back-formations," and "clippings." Two kinds of acronym are found, the letter-naming type (e.g. FBI, YMCA) and the letter-sounding type (e.g. UNESCO, CARE). The latter type must be pronounceable within the phonotactic norms of…

In a sociolinguistic study of the verb phrase in Southern White English, a pattern of change in progress was observed. The 14 variables studied showed that certain variants were increasing, others decreasing, and yet others stable across time within the community, and that each variable's change was progressing in a wave sensitive to age, social…

An applied research paper on how Canadian English differs from British and American English. Highlights ways for teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) to demonstrate these differences to their students. The notion of Canadian identity is also explored. A 3-item bibliography is included. (Contains 15 footnotes.)

The purpose of this presentation is to encourage college teachers of writing, inside and outside Appalachia, to look at dialect-based errors in a more expansive way even as they help students to make better choices about standard usage. The discussion, which is presented within the context of a socio-cultural perspective on bias in perceptions of…

Arab Americans are a very diverse group. Misinformation about Arab culture plays a significant role in American perceptions and understandings of Arab American students. Whenever major events occur in the Middle East, Arab Americans become the focus of investigation. However, the Arab American community has remained relatively silent. The media…