The present paper, a general survey of modern foreign language teaching as it is influenced by applied linguistics, discusses some of the outstanding works and foremost theories in the areas of psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, programmed instruction, and contrastive analysis. In discussing the methodology involved in foreign language teaching,…

This report, the third of a series of reports dealing with convergent communication among children, compares children's performance on certain communication tasks with that of adults. (Convergent communication is defined as communication in which two persons cooperatively exchange information in order to reach an explicitly stated goal and where,…

This paper begins with a discussion of the assumptions basic to the study of both language and social dialects: verbal systems are arbitrary, all languages or dialects are adequate as communicative systems, they are systematic and ordered and learned in the context of the community. A survey of current work and findings in dialect studies follows.…

This report considers the early stages of grammatical development in the child. It summarizes some cross-linguistic similarities in acquisition of several different types of languages: English (both white and black, lower and middle class), German, Russian, Finnish, Samoan, and Luo. With this small but diverse collection of languages and cultures…

In this paper the author takes a positive not a negative view of sign language. It is the center of attention, not as an object of interest to the specialist in language, but as the central feature in the complex sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic system that makes the deaf person part of general American culture and at the same time part of a…

The writer, who feels that the chief differences between Black English (BE) and White English (WE) are phonological and not syntactic, reports on a sociolinguistically oriented examination of that variety of English spoken by children in rural Northern Florida (CBE/Fla). Twenty-two black children between the ages of nine and 12 were taped…

A number of "do's" and "don'ts" are offered that could be helpful to teachers working with the culturally different. Briefly summarized, the suggestions are: (1) Understand that there is no such thing as a culturally deprived child. (2) Understand that the language or dialect the students speak is as perfect a linguistic system as the teacher's…

The formal study of social dialects has received increasing attention since about the middle of the sixties. In linguistics, the study of social dialectology has resulted in the clear demonstration of the importance of sociolinguistic variation in linguistic theory in contrast to the former preoccupation with linguistic universals. In education,…

Designed to measure the acceptability of foreign accents, this study describes the parameters of the stereotypes and credibility that Southwest American listeners attribute to French and Spanish accented English Speech. The paper is divided into four main sections--a review of the literature pertinent to the study topic, a description of the…

This collection of essays is concerned with the relationships between language and education. It is intended to be used in an undergraduate course but may also be used by many others interested in language in an educational context. A variety of approaches to the subject are considered, including the philosophical, psychological, sociological,…

LINGUISTIC STUDIES IN CHICAGO, DETROIT, LONDON, NEW YORK CITY, AND WASHINGTON, D.C. ARE REVIEWED. THEY SUGGEST ONE OF THE CURRENT TRENDS IN DIALECT RESEARCH--NARROW LINGUISTIC, INTERDISCIPLINARY ANALYSES OF LANGUAGE VARIATION IN CITIES. ANOTHER TREND STUDIED IS THE DESCRIPTION OF THE SPEECH OF STUDENTS IN ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY SCHOOLS, AND…

A brief report of some preliminary findings obtained from a sociolinguistics census of Chicano college students attending a university in Southwest Texas is presented. Findings reported deal with: (1) general patterns of language usage as reported by students, and (2) the students' evaluative responses to code-switching phrases controlled for…

This paper examines language variation in terms of overdetermination and underdetermination of structural information as related to grammatical rules and the structure of social behavior. (CLK)

A number of studies are reviewed for the purpose of identifying the ways in which non-content aspects of speech elicit personality impressions. (RM)

Pronominal usage in spoken Bangkok Thai is described from a sociolinguistic point of view. Two phonological variants are indicated: one when a variant occurs in isolation and the other in natural speech. These two types of phonological variation generally are marked by different tones. (Author/RM)