E. D. Hirsch's "Philosophy of Composition" (in press) reintroduces to communication theorists the "progress of language" thesis first developed, by Henry Bradley and Otto Jespersen around 1900, in the context of oral language. The thesis states that languages--English in particular--tend to become more simplified and flexible…

Identifies various speech styles of English as marked by stance adverbials. Indicates that the discourse functions of stance adverbials differ considerably from the functions suggested by their literal meanings. (JK)

Presents a mixed picture of the influence of classroom drama lessons on students' oral language growth. Demonstrates that time can be taken from the regular language arts program and given to drama without adverse effect in the development of students' oral language. (EL)

Examines analysis of cohesion as an index of both social and cognitive factors. Oral language of reading disabled was studied and found to indicate some difficulties of the subjects when dealing with information under special social and cognitive conditions. (DF)

Presents an experimental approach to the linguistic analysis of discourse organization. (FL)

Although children's oral language has been a focus of interest and inquiry through the 20th century, current investigations document research with literature of more recent decades to support investigations, theoretical design, or philosophical approach. The developmental nature of the literature, with marked changes in theory and methods of child…

Indicates that 18- to 20-month-old infants can detect the correspondence between auditorially and visually perceived speech; that is, they manifest some of the components related to lip-reading phenomena in adults. This demonstration of the bimodal perception of speech in infancy has important implications for social, cognitive, and linguistic…

Examines through a text analysis of spoken and written discourse the meaning and function of the double genitive (DG) in English in comparison to the inflected preposed genitive. The study shows the DG to possess unique and specific pragmatic functions not adequately described for nonnative students. (22 references) (Author/CK)

Attempts to look at the question of selection and sequencing in light of recent research into the nature of spoken English. Specifically, it is argued that a lexical metasyllabus based on statistical regularities in spoken and written language would be a useful tool to curriculum designers. (Author/VWL)

Reviews the literature on the role of background knowledge in second-language listening comprehension, presents findings of pertinent first- and second-language research, and reports on a study showing the importance of schemata in second-language listening comprehension and the role of linguistic knowledge. (34 references) (Author/CB)

Discusses a study of the expressive qualities of oral language. Results suggest that there is a natural rather than an arbitrary relationship between words and their meanings. Practical applications of this theory of phonetic symbolism in the area of commercial advertising are presented. (CFM)

Investigates the incidence of segmental and prosodic contrasts in recorded sentence materials and the use of such distinctions in the processing of utterances. The chosen materials involve sites of parsing ambiguity. Results show that in the immediate interpretation of spoken language input, intonational contrasts function as clear structural…

A framework is formulated to explain the context and content sensitivity involved in the meaning of utterances of sentences containing a modal auxiliary. It is argued that the English language is based in a relatively simple, well-structured semantic system, yet it is used on a highly complex world of communication. (Contains 39 references.) (LB)

Hyperfluency, defined as discourse that is inappropriate and incompetent in the target audience's estimation, and its relationship to composition pedagogy are discussed. It is argued that hyperfluency can signal the growth of an individual's linguistic resources. (16 references) (Author/LB)

Examines mean length of utterance (MLU) in morphemes as a predictor of the grammatical complexity of the natural language corpora of normal preschoolers and of children and adolescents with delayed language, Fragile X Syndrome, Down Syndrome, and autism. (43 references) (GLR)