Contrastive feature hierarchies have been developed and used for some time in depicting typical phonological development and in guiding therapy decisions. Previous descriptions of feature use have been based on independent analyses and usually phonetic inventories. However, recent trends in phonology include a relational analysis of phonemic…

A COMPUTER ANALYSIS OF SPOKEN WORDS AND PHRASES WAS OBTAINED IN 1959 FROM THE RESPONSES OF 33 NATIVE INFORMANTS FROM 23 COUNTIES IN TENNESSEE, GEORGIA, MISSISSIPPI, AND ALABAMA. INFORMANTS WERE ASKED TO IDENTIFY PICTURES, AND THEIR RESPONSES WERE RECORDED ON TAPE AND TRANSCRIBED. A COMPUTER WAS UTILIZED TO PRODUCE LISTINGS OF PARTICULAR SPEECH…

This study sought to analyze phoneme/grapheme correspondences in a 17,310-entry word list drawn from the Thorndike-Lorge word list and Merriam-Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary. Phase one of the research, which has also been reported separately, also sought to determine how closely American-English orthography approximates the alphabetic…

Originally appeared in Workpapers: Teaching English as a Second Language," Volume 5 (June 1971), Department of English, University of California, Los Angeles, California. (VM)

The notion of a universal pattern of phonological development, rooted in basic physiological constraints, is controversial, with some researchers arguing for a strong environmental (ambient language) influence on phonological development or an interaction of both physiological constraints and ambient language effects. This research examines the…

This dictionary, containing 32,000 entries, has been compiled for the general use of the American student of Spanish and the Spanish-speaking student of English, with special reference in either case to New World usage as found in the United States and in Spanish America. Entries were selected according to the relative frequency of their…

In this second of two studies conducted with portions of the National Speech and Hearing Survey data, the investigators analyzed the phonetic variants from standard American English in the speech of two groups of nonstandard English speaking children. The study used samples of free speech and performance on the Gold-Fristoe Test of Articulation…

Discusses an interview in which Marcyliena Morgan elaborates on the necessity to analyze both microlinguistic issues of grammar and phonology as well as larger issues of discourse pragmatics and language ideology. The interview touches on African American poetry, the convergence of African American and standard English, and oases and indirectness.…

The transcript of and guide to a two-cassette course designed to assist Russian immigrants in erasure of their foreign accent can be used for either individual or group study. Narrative and taped demonstrations of American English that pinpoint typical phonological barriers and pronunciation difficulties are outlined. The author's own system of…

This paper discusses the concept of error in the learning of the phonology of a second language and argues that the concept of error must be viewed as a positive element, an initiation of the process of successive approximations toward the correct phonetic realization. Based on the idea that interference between two languages generates a…

Six hundred and sixteen CVC stimulus syllables beginning with /l/ and /r/ were presented by tape recording to six Japanese foreign students at Indiana University. Analysis of variance showed the effect of the final consonant variable on the identification of initial /l/ and /r/ was significant at the .05 level; the effect of the CV interaction was…

Anthropologist Melville Herskovits, in the section on language of his book "The Myth of the Negro Past" (1941), gives one of the first scientific orientations to the study of black speech in the United States. His basic contribution was to establish the following main points: (1) that the black people in the New World came from regions…

Handshapes with single finger extension are examined in data from 10 sign languages: American, Australian, British, Finnish, French, Japanese, Providence Island, Rennell Island, Indian, and Swedish. It is concluded that a theory of marking can be developed along the same lines as for spoken language, with only the physiology differing. (Author/MSE)

Examines the nature of language diversity in the small, isolated community of Ocracoke Island, North Carolina, where a lone African American family has resided for over 130 years. (57 references) (Author/CK)