Describes adjustments in speech patterns made by two- and three-year-olds when talking to their 14-month-old siblings and compares these changes with those made by mothers addressing their babies. Individual differences between the children indicate two types of influence on the adjustments made--pragmatic and emotional. (EKN)

Examines listeners' use of acoustic properties in making personal attributions. In three experiments, subjects listened to recordings of male speakers answering two interview questions and rated the speakers on a variety of scales. (CM)

Erard's (2004) publication in the "New York Times" of a journalistic history of the filled pause serves as the occasion for this critical review of the past half-century of research on the filled pause. Historically, the various phonetic realizations or instantiations of the filled pause have been presented with an odd recurrent admixture of the…

One of a series of semi-annual reports, this publication contains 18 articles which report the status and progress of studies on the nature of speech, instruments for its investigation, and practical applications. Articles are as follows: "The Emergence of Native-Language Phonological Influences in Infants: A Perceptual Assimilation…

A nasal separator was used to measure the oral and nasal components in the speech of a normal adult Australian population. Results indicated no difference in oral and nasal sound pressure levels for read versus spontaneous speech samples; however, females tended to have a higher nasal component than did males. (Author/TL)

Pragmatic factors necessary to the understanding of colloquial expressions are called here "simpragma." Some examples are provided. (Text is in Spanish.) (DS)

A study of the extent to which the sequence-of-tenses rule (STR) is used in television news reporting in the United States is presented. The study examines which tenses are shifted most frequently and explains the uses and functions of tense variation. It is argued that STR is not always a semantically and pragmatically unmarked form as proposed…

The author differentiates eight types of verbal communication: (1) Socioeconomic, (2) Domestic, (3) Professional, (4) Sociocultural, (5) Public, (6) Legal-Administrative, (7) Recreational, (8) Entertaining. (HK)

Investigates the role of social factors and marital status in the use of expletives among married and single American women between the ages of 40 and 55. (AM)

Two studies were undertaken to determine first whether language characteristics attributed to females are more socially desirable than those attributed to males and second whether a double standard exists such that language traits seen as socially desirable for adults in general are viewed as negative when assigned to either females or males. For…