Two studies were conducted to test the view that the early reading difficulties experienced by boys result from a "difference" in the way they use language, not their "deficit" in language ability. The first study replicated previous findings that young boys outperform young girls in receptive language ability although they perform less well in…

IT IS NOT YET KNOWN HOW THE EXTENT OF LANGUAGE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN LOWER CLASS CHILDREN AND TEACHERS WITH MIDDLE CLASS TRAINING AND, FOR THE MOST PART, WITH MIDDLE CLASS BACKGROUNDS, INFLUENCES CLASSROOM COMMUNICATION. AN EVALUATION WAS MADE OF THE EXPRESSIVE LINGUISTIC SKILLS AND SPEECH CONTENT OF CHILDREN OF DIFFERENT AGES, RACES, AND SOCIAL…

Vocabulary development includes learning to recognize, comprehend, and produce alternative ways of communicating a word, an image, or a concept. Instruction in such language alternatives can increase the effectiveness of students' communication skills, making their vocabulary usage more appropriate, precise, descriptive, and interesting.…

This pamphlet is the seventh in a series of ten stemming from the view that language is central to learning, that teachers can gain insights into their work and into learning by examining the language of the classroom, and that current language theory can be the means to such insights. The pamphlet describes a project in which recordings of…

The importance of human communication is the focus of this guide for improving language habits, which explores both various communication problems and techniques for handling them. Topics discussed are as follows: bad language habits; words as symbols which do not dictate the nature of things in the real world; inaccurate communication which…

A normal Japanese boy (11-months-old) was observed while playing alone and while interacting with his mother to study the child's physical and vocal imitation and to determine the relationship between his use of physical (nonverbal) and vocal (verbal) communication. During 10 free play sessions, four observers noted occurrences of such behavior as…

This book consists of five lectures on communication given at the fifth Nobel Conference. Leroy G. Augenstein explores the positive and negative consequences of man's increasing capacity to manipulate and control the human mind. Peter Marler demonstrates that all the elements necessary for a communication system to qualify as a language exist…

Some reflections upon how writers learn to write are presented in an analogy with learning to swim, offering implications for the teaching of composition. The "simplicity" of the act of writing is contrasted with the "complexity" discovered by literary analysis. Two of the author's poems are used as examples. (AF)

A survey of Maurice Merleau-Ponty's views on the phenomenology of language yields insight into the basic semiotic nature of language. Merleau-ponty's conceptions stand in opposition to Saussure's linguistic postulations and Korzybski's scientism. That is, if language is studied phenomenologically, the acts of speech and gesture take on greater…

Personal satisfaction or enjoyment can be obtained from participation in the persuasive or informative processes of public discourse, partially because both are serious methods of attaining socially useful goals. The public speaker is challenged by the opportunity to raise his audience's level of information about a subject and to influence their…

"The Hope Chest," a short story by Jean Stafford, offers a challenge to the oral interpreter of literature because it demands that the performer demonstrate its complex narrative levels. There are five distinct facets in the personality of the central character, Miss Bellamy: a lonely, fearful old lady; a shrewd, hospitable mistress of…

This report concentrates on languages and is part of a working copy being revised for inclusion into a curriculum manual for preschool teachers. In encouraging children to speak, some Do's and Don't's are presented, such as not correcting the grammar or pronunciation of a young child, and not relying on non-verbal gestures in giving instructions.…

Evaluated with 14 dyslexic and 14 normal boys (all 6-12 years old) was the relationship between slow speech-motor encoding to the transfer of information from short-term to long-term memory. (Author/DB)