THIS STUDY OF THE ARTICULATORY AND INTELLIGIBILITY LEVEL OF A SOCIALLY DISADVANTAGED GROUP OF CHILDREN IN THE HEAD START PROGRAM INVOLVED 150 CHILDREN, 4 1/2 - 6 YEARS OF AGE, WITH EQUAL NUMBERS OF BOYS AND GIRLS. THIS GROUP WAS COMPOSED OF CHILDREN OF FAMILIES WITH SPANISH LANGUAGE BACKGROUND, OF CHILDREN OF NATIVE NEGRO FAMILIES, AND OF CHILDREN…

A 10-WEEK INTENSIVE COURSE IN ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE WAS DEVELOPED AT MISSISSIPPI SOUTHERN COLLEGE AND CONSIDERABLE EXPERIMENTING WAS DONE WITH DIFFERENT METHODS, MATERIALS, AND TECHNIQUES. THE GOVERNING ASSUMPTIONS WERE THAT LANGUAGE BASICALLY CONSISTS OF SPEECH OR SOUND, AND THAT THE MASTERY OF A SOUND SYSTEM INVOLVES THE MASTERY OF THE…

Nine transcripts of recorded conversation of German children ranging from 10 through 19 years of age are of special interest to linguists working on child language. The recordings, made in Heidelberg, Berlin, Hanover, and Urach/Wurttemberg, include elicited behaviors called "linguistic activities". The interviewers attempt to elicit: (1)…

Selected visible and audible features of stuttered speech were studied to determine whether these phenomena suggested a basis for differentiating among stutterers. Forty-six visible and audible phenomena of stuttering were examined in 23 stutterers, using a frame-by-frame analysis of sound motion picture film. Significant inter-subject differences…

Students of Spanish in the United States who are native speakers of Spanish need courses designed to meet their special linguistic needs. The tendency has been for teachers to place negative value judgments on the Spanish dialects spoken by Mexican-Americans. Instead, courses should be based on the areas in which the native Spanish speaker needs…

An attempt is made in this book to state some of the features of and dispel some of the myths about nonstandard English, particularly the dialects of English spoken by many black Americans, and to consider alternative policies that might be adopted regarding varied forms of English. The chapters of the book include "What Is the Problem?""Is…

Irregularities in oral fluency, or "disfluencies," are common in the speech habits of both children and adults. Disfluencies can take the form of hesitations, revisions, repetitions, or interjections. Most disfluenceies do not occur at random, but are directly linked to other factors such as verbal planning--the combination of decisions…

The pronunciations of children do not merely represent accidental misses with respect to adult pronunciation. Children employ substitutions and deletions in highly systematic ways; child pronunciations reflect a set of simplification strategies. The major common processes of both normal and abnormal child phonology result in simplification of…

This study tested two primary hypotheses concerning the effects of mispronunciation on the ratings of source credibility. First, as the number of mispronunciations presented by a speaker increases, audience ratings of source credibility will decrease. Second, the effects hypothesized in the first statement will be stronger for audiences at a more…

Examined the speech patterns of three- to eight-year-old children. Results showed that the children most often used "ah" phenomena and unfilled pauses as do adults. "Ah" phenomena showed a significant increase with age, especially between five and six among the females. (SRT)

A limited attempt to teach and assess the ability of native English-speaking adolescents is described. The concern is not to teach more language but to encourage use of existing language in a formal interview with maximum flexibility and effectiveness. Possible ties into second language instruction are considered. (Author/MSE)

Outlines conceptual distinction among avoidance, cooperation, and competitive conflict resolution strategies used by marital partners. Couples (N=43) were audiotaped as they discussed previous disagreements. Found the temporal aspects of speech, including turn-taking and interruptions, need to be considered in the study of couples' conflict…

Comments on samples of role playing taken from English-teaching material used in the sixth grade, trying to ascertain what the requirements are for communication and what the characteristics of typical speech behavior are. The text analysis is followed by suggestions for planning the teaching procedure.

The current move toward sexual equality in society has caused sociolinguists to question assumptions that male language is the norm for all language, with women's language a variation of it. Desexitization of the language has become important in the field of linguistics. nAuthor/HLM)

Recommends that students conduct ethnographic studies of language in their own communities. Emphasizes that the focus ought to be conventions of speaking and writing, as well as conventions that govern the conduct, the "texts," of a culture. (RAE)