Inner city teachers who had received special inservice training had significantly different attitudes toward nonstandard black dialects than did other inner city teachers. (Ed.)

The Hixkaryana language is discussed concerning its functions and forms of redundancy, and a transcription of the first part of a folktale narrative is shown. (NCR)

Focusing on a model "game language," outlines an approach to speech instruction aimed at improving students' speaking skills and their understanding of variable speech habits. Discusses (1) speech instruction as part of the English curriculum, (2) a primary lesson "talking about talk," (3) the speech game--restricted sustained monologue, and (4)…

Words artificially isolated from 12 parents' speech to their children aged 1;10-3;0 were significantly less intelligible to adult listeners than words originally spoken to an adult. While parents did not adjust the clarity of words, their speech was more redundant in anticipation of the children's comprehension. Research implications are…

A study of how teachers form initial impressions of pupils examined the relative influence of speech style, physical appearance, and written work on teacher judgments of pupils on a wide range of classroom personality and cognitive variables. Pupil voice and accent were found to be a strong influence in judgments about the child as a learner.…

Examined the relationship between physiographic gestures and speech in seven-year-olds using data from classroom interviews. Found that an abundance of physiographic gestures were used in conversations, but they were not randomly distributed. Describing pictures and activities produced many gestures, while storytelling produced almost none.…

Presents a study examining the effect of high and low communication apprehension in conjunction with social and personal settings upon verbal behavior. Stepwise multiple discriminant analysis of the data indicates several language variables that discriminate between the high apprehensive-personal setting group and the remaining groups. (JMF)

Traces the development of an approach to studying face-to-face interaction that proposes to expound the rules or procedures of interaction and to account for observed behavior in terms of how it functions as a communicational system. A selective literature review and recommendations for further study are included. (EJS)

A discussion of teacher talk, particularly in the context of language immersion, looks at its nature, content, and form. A study reported here indicates the importance of discourse modification by the teacher and points up the need for further research on the effects of teacher talk on second-language learning. (Contains 23 references.)…

Surveyed groups of Chinese, Malay and Tamil families, their use of community languages or mother tongue, and their speaking, reading, and writing proficiency. Found that when parents' community language proficiency in speaking is lower they tend to choose English as preferred language. Children's language confidence affected their language choice.…

A non-structural model is proposed for quantifying and analyzing the dynamics of language attrition, particularly among immigrants in a second language environment, based on examination of disfluencies (hesitations, errors, and repairs). The first chapter discusses limitations of the conventional synchronic textual approach to analyzing language…

Two major theories trace the origins of black English to African influence or British Isles influence. According to the African origin theory, black English was created through pidginization, creolization, and decreolization as Africans came into contact with Europeans through the slave trade. The second theory holds that most black English…

Communication workshops can provide opportunity for secondary students to participate in oral communication, which will help them become more active in the classroom situation. (JH)

Arguing that talk has an important place in the English language arts curriculum and across the whole curriculum, this book presents examples of children and teachers talking together, talking about what they are doing "here and now," and talking about what they know and feel about events shaping the world beyond the classroom. Chapter…

A study was conducted to examine the differences in language usage between males and females in the specific moral domain of conflict resolution and rationales for decisions. The subjects, 39 female and 21 male college students, were given an imaginary conflict scenario to resolve, asked how the conflict should be resolved, what the rationales…