Reviews research that points toward the theoretical consideration of conventionalized written language, proposing that written discourse conventions can usefully be studied from a multifunctional perspective considering the interacting social, cognitive, and textual functions of language. A large unannotated bibliography is included. (CB)

Two experiments are described that confirmed previous contentions that there is an imperfect correspondence between subjects' pause reports and actual pauses in oral reading and that auditory cues represent only part of the picture. Semantic and linguistic cues also appear to have substantial effect on the accuracy of pause reports. (13…

Small-scale empirical study was conducted of what characterizes morning-magazine radio language and how and why it varies. Results indicated radio language was mixture of spoken and written language, but relationship between amount of discourse planning and type of social interaction was not the same in radio situations as it is in spoken and…

Describes a story telling process, a technique for teaching oral English as a Second Language. This technique can be used at any proficiency level beyond the beginner stage, can be adapted to various class sizes, and requires no special materials for students. (JL)

Illustrates how children's "poetic voices in action" provide context for the writing of poetry. Describes how the author taped hours of classroom interaction and the talk that surrounded the children's writing, browsing, reading and performance of poetry. Shares examples of reflective voices at play. Examines ways in which teachers can…

Discusses a word-onset gating technique to investigate the role of prosody in word recognition. Subjects were asked to identify words based on onsets followed by information about full word prosody. Results showed that words were correctly recognized with significantly less segmental onset information when word prosody was available. (Author/VWL)

Describes the retrieving and transposing of utterances from plays that were staged in the context of a French course using drama techniques. Results show consistency even though the number of retrieved and transposed utterances varied between the subjects from one task to the other. (Author/VWL)

Examines the earliest uses of verbal morphology in Spanish, an inflectional language. Stringent criteria were applied to data from two children to determine what inflections are used productively. Analyses reveal that there is little productive command of verbal morphology at early ages, and that subjects begin with a single form per verb.…

Offers examples and proposals for fostering pragmatic awareness in a second language (L2) through the recognition of the interpersonal function of asset of common expressions in contemporary spoken English. Illustrates the use of these forms in marking assumptions of being similar, polite, accurate, being informative, and emphatic. (Author/VWL)

Investigated the use of "mama" or similar sounds referred to as "mama" by 75 infants less than 6 months of age. Parents were directed to listen for "mama" sounds and to note the sounds made, the age of onset, whether the sounds appeared to be directed to any person or persons, or whether they appeared to have a purpose. (Author/VWL)

Investigated the acquisition of English syllable codas by speakers of Mandarin Chinese. Three participants' naturalistic production of syllable codas were studied and analyzed through VARBRUL and descriptive statistics to determine accuracy orders and production modifications of codas by length at two data collection times with a time span of 6…

Discusses the importance of providing opportunities for ongoing oral language development for all students, the particular needs of children learning English as a second language, and the unique appropriateness of poetry as a vehicle for providing practice and pleasure in oral language skill development. Notes that poetry provides a relaxed and…

Based on an investigation of spellings of German punk fanzines, this article sketches a framework for the analysis of nonstandard spellings in media texts. The analysis distinguishes between a number of spelling types, which include both representations of spoken language and purely graphemic modifications, and three patterns of spelling usage:…

Discusses the right of Deaf children to grow up bilingually. This involves the opportunity to acquire a sign language as well as the oral language spoken by the hearing community. Examines the role of both the sign language and the oral language for the Deaf child. (Author/VWL)

Tests two accounts of the role of gesture in speaking. Specifically, the study seeks to establish whether gesture is involved in the conceptual planning of messages, or whether it is involved only in the generation of the surface forms of utterances. To accomplish this goal, two tasks were developed that elicit comparable utterances but make…