Presents a demographic approach to the study of linguistic minorities, focusing on major analytical issues, particular data needs, and research possibilities. The approach's potential in the study of second-language acquisition, language maintenance, and shift pertaining to linguistic minorities is illustrated. (40 references) (Author/CB)

Defines cognitive approaches to second-language acquisition research first in terms of goals and theoretical orientations, next, in terms of its methods (observations, experimentation, simulation), and last, in terms of its applications. (Author/VWL)

Advancements in the design and use of computer-assisted language learning (CALL) activities require that key questions about CALL be identified and effective research methods be used to answer them. This article suggests looking to research on other types of second-language (L2) classroom activities for guidance in framing CALL research questions…

Liliana Sanchez' paper is a welcome contribution to the growing body of literature on Andean Spanish (cf. a recent survey in Muysken, 2004a), welcome both because a well-motivated and clearly described methodology is used and because it is embedded in an explicit theoretical framework. I do not have reservations about the overall conclusions of…

This single subject design study examined two models of intervention: Denver Model (which merges behavioral, developmental, and relationship-oriented intervention), and PROMPT (a neuro-developmental approach for speech production disorders). Ten young, nonverbal children with autism were matched in pairs and randomized to treatment. They received…

The comments presented here were made after the presentation of four papers and commentary by two other symposium participants. They address issues in language comparison and classification. First, comments are made on the papers ("An African Test Case in Comparative Methodology,""The Mathematics of Multilateral Comparison,""Testing a Basic…

The third in a series of three reports draws on earlier discussion of theories of discontinuity in human existence to develop a method for studying individual perceptions of existence. The method is Perspective Text Analysis, a form of discourse analysis that focuses on self-reference as a reflection of competence. The model for the methodology is…

In studying sociolinguistic rules, researchers must be aware of some guiding principles: that (1) these rules are below the conscious level of awareness, and (2) rules of speaking differ across cultural groups, with none being more correct than another. Even when members of different cultural groups interact in the same language they may find it…

This document, the third edition of the bibliography of the Philippines Summer Institute of Linguistics, contains about 2,300 citations on 83 languages. The technical works cited include (1) textbooks for language study; (2) papers resulting from general linguistic research; (3) descriptions of the philologies, grammars, and lexicons of specific…

Five prominent issues in quantitative sociolinguistic discussions of speaker classification are summarized and discussed, and a case study that attempts to extend the available methodology is examined. The five issues include the following: (1) to what extent are speaker categories emic or etic? (2) do speaker categories encode local inter-speaker…

Five concepts are included in the title of this paper; they gravitate around the key words: problems, macrological, micrological, multilingual, and multicultural. In turn, these five sub-components of the study of multilingualism illustrate the fragmentation of research in this area. Problems are created by researchers who are unable to grasp the…

Examines some of the main theoretical issues at the basis of generative grammar and the ways they can be a useful theoretical frame of reference for field procedures. (SC)

Sixth-grade students were subjects in a study to determine whether they possessed a repertoire of situational language in which registers or speech styles were differentiated by language use. A methodology was developed to elicit and describe children's language in different social settings that require different situational uses of language. Four…

Overlapping samples of 191, 142, and 87 undergraduates rated pairs of sentences for the frequency and acceptability of the syntactic constructions represented to investigate the feasibility of using such ratings in the study of syntactic forms. The results indicated that subjects are consistent in their judgments of both the frequency and…

Data from undergraduates' ratings of the frequency and acceptability of selected syntactic constructions are analyzed for linguistically defined sets. Mean ratings of frequency and acceptability as well as the results from a cluster analysis of each set of sentences are given for seven target contrasts: active/passive, may/might, perfect/past,…