Finds that explicit anaphors only reactivated undergraduate students' target antecedents when they are both lexically and conceptually identical to a target antecedent; but as distance between an anaphor and its antecedent increased, even an explicit anaphor did not reactivate a target antecedent. Shows that distant antecedents were reactivated…

Explores whether speakers choose spatial perspectives to minimize effort. Discusses an experiment in which speakers describe locations on a display for addressees who shared their vantage point or had different views. Finds that same-viewpoint speakers spoke differently from speakers with offset views, who did not differ from each other reliably,…

Argues that the null preposition phenomenon is a special case of reliance on the A-bar binding strategy, examining research on English-French interlanguage in college classrooms and suggesting that apparent categorical mismatches in A-bar chains may result from preposition incorporation. Second-language learners can appeal to the A-bar binding…

A study explored the relationship between the second language (L2) production of the Spanish stop consonants /p/ and /b/. Subjects were native English-speaking students enrolled in an undergraduate Spanish phonetics course. Data were collected on their production of Spanish /p,b/ in sentence context, and on their perceptual boundary between the…

A study explored the efficacy of the general semantic technique of E-Prime (a technique for increasing awareness of abstraction through the deliberate deletion of all forms of the verb "to be") through a study of copula deletion (omission of auxiliary verbs) and flaming (the fervent exchange of emotionally charged messages) in electronic…

A study investigated the usefulness of indirect complaints (ICs)--i.e., expressions of dissatisfaction about someone or something not present--as a strategy for negotiating interaction for second language acquisition. In contrast to a direct complaint, an IC can be used to attempt to establish solidarity with an interlocutor. The language corpus…

A feedback technique for second-language compositions is that of "reformulation." This procedure consists of having a native writer of the target language rewrite the learner's essay, preserving all the learner's ideas. The learner then compares this version with the original version, complete with teacher corrections. To determine the benefits of…

Describes an alphabetic process for cuing readers to speak the three dimensions of sound: fundamental frequency, duration, and intensity. (RB)

In order to examine how the manipulation of the stylistic and semantic attributes of a counselor's language affects client perceptions of counselor expertness, attractiveness, and trustworthiness, 132 college students (88 females, 44 males) were randomly assigned to listen to one of four counseling audiotapes; the tapes were identical as to topic…

An examination of the history of the practical grammar, of which the college handbook is the modern reflex, reveals why the grammar handbook is so stubbornly resistant to changes in linguistic theory, usage, or ideology. First, codifying English grammar and producing texts for teaching English grammar to school children during the eighteenth…

Confirms that listeners rely on communicators' levels of linguistic nonimmediacy (the degree of verbal indirectness with which communicators refer to themselves) for impression formation. (RB)

An exploratory study of quantitative measurement of syntactic and rhetorical fluency examined students' writing near the beginning and near the end of a two-quarter, freshman English program. The syntactic analysis focused on the clause, which was classified according to basic syntactic type and elaborating syntactic structures. The rhetorical…

Cites over 75 examples of errors in usage which were made by newswriters for the "Washington Post," suggesting that they indicate the social dimensions of language decay. (DD)

Recent research in language teaching is cited and four models for assessing the relationship between research and practice are discussed. These models are called the application model, separation or hands-off model, resource model, and common-ground or convergence model. (SW)

Defines lexical diversity as manifest vocabulary range and lexical density as the ratio of lexical to gramatical items in a unit of discourse. Examines the effects of lexical diversity and density on listeners' evaluative judgments. (MH)