A research study is reported that studied (1) the effect of respondents' chronological age on attitudes toward patronizing speech directed at the institutionalized elderly and (2) the prevalence of and understanding of patronizing speech toward noninstitutionalized elderly individuals. (36 references) (LB)

Examines the effects of other linguistic structures on the process of phonological downstep (where pitch declines during the course of utterances) in Japanese. It is concluded that the downstep process involves not only a phonological aspect but two other aspects, metrical and rhythmic. (23 references) (JL)

Six children were studied from the age of 6 months to 1 year and 6 months to chart their developing comprehension vocabularies from the first to the 100th word. Observational data were used in the first instance to identify newly comprehended words and then controlled testing was carried out for each word to confirm and expand the observational…

Inconclusive evidence that second-language learners understand a foreign language better than they speak it led to a study of the comprehension of native and nonnative speakers. Results indicated that second-language learners speak better than they understand. The paper discusses three conditions for learning: overt activity, emotional…

Outlines challenges that arose in the course of a classroom-based research project, identifies the realities of the second language setting that contributed to these complexities, and examines useful sources of support available to novice investigators. Oral communication tasks were administered to three groups of English learners in Canada: a…

This paper explores two related factors which influence variation in duration, prosodic structure and redundancy in spontaneous speech. We argue that the constraint of producing robust communication while efficiently expending articulatory effort leads to an inverse relationship between language redundancy and duration. The inverse relationship…

Traditional reading methods have not focused on the language of students in the classroom as an important component of teaching reading. Language researchers have discovered that expressive oral language is an important component of reading instruction. There are several suggestions for the promotion of good language development that have been…

A study analyzed responses of 20 children with and without language impairment to two narrative genres, oral narratives and emergent readings, elicited in the children's homes. Subjects were 2-to 4-year-old preschool children from the metropolitan area of a mid-sized midwestern city: 10 children with specific language impairment (SLI) and 10 with…

The question addressed in this paper is whether explicit instruction makes any difference in the acquisition of modals or whether opportunities for interaction are sufficient. Eight non-native speakers (NNSs), aged 17-35 and representing several nationalities, were tested. The language focus was "will,""be going to," and…

A study investigated the exophoric function of the pronouns "it, they, he, she" and related forms in four English conversations. It analyzed the frequency and characteristics of the occurrence of those exophoric pronouns and found that they were much less frequent than endophoric pronouns. It also found that the exophoric pronoun groups…

Different conceptions of literacy and its relationship with oral communication are examined, and a new approach that separates literacy and orality rather than representing them on a continuum is criticized. The methodological and theoretical assumptions underlying the work of proponents of the new approach are questioned, including: (1) a narrow…

Sound-meaning correspondences produced by an infant were studied under conditions of early rampant homonymy (i.e., production by a very young child of a small set of noncontrastive surface forms or phonetic sequences to refer to objects/events that on the basis of adult standards require the production of numerous contrasting surface forms). The…

Empirical studies that demonstrate probable gender biased perceptions resulting from the use of man-linked words and third-person, singular masculine pronouns are reviewed in this paper. Among the findings revealed by the review are: (1) there is a tendency for people to perceive man-linked words as more likely to refer to men than to women; (2)…

Compares the language generated by different kinds of oral communication activities. Areas of comparison include: speed of speaking, frequency of turns taken, and frequency of self-correction. Results indicate that the relative degree to which a student draws on his communicative and linguistic resources seems to be related to the communication…

A study examined children's use of private speech in early childhood classrooms. The study's three goals were: to determine the degree to which private speech is used; to replicate and extend previous research with older children; and to examine the classroom's particular contexts and activity settings which maximize children's use of private…