Presents data on patterns of language use by Italians living in Australia, focusing on the maintenance of Italian and Dialect under the impact of widespread shift to English. Data from self-report surveys suggest differences by gender, age, and region of origin and note that the position of Italian, though more limited, is somewhat more solid than…

Discusses childhood bilingualism, reviewing the one person-one language principle and the criticism against it, discussing shortcomings of the criticism, examining what the principle can do to bilingual families, and noting the sociolinguistic and developmental effects that one person-one language principle can have on the acquisition of the…

Analyzes the linguistic notion of procedural vocabulary, proposing that several different vocabulary concepts are part of this type of vocabulary. The paper discusses the role of procedural vocabulary in discourse, suggesting that the concepts of schema and procedure are relevant for describing this type of vocabulary and categorizing it into two…

Investigates a strategy for language acquisition adopted by one child and the usefulness of imitation in supporting that strategy. Examination of recordings made of naturally occurring conversations between the child and his parents indicated that he exploited imitation fully in order to acquire language. Imitative utterances surpassed spontaneous…

Three technological courses at Australia's University of Technology have closely-related programs to assist students with language difficulties. The strategies include a diagnostic language test, a language orientation program, and a center providing language support throughout the semester. The paper documents the strategies, presents statistics…

This study of the use of "then"/"after that" by Vietnamese English-as-a-Second-Language learners suggests that the temporal adverbial poses a significant learning challenge similar to morphological means of temporal reference. Learner usage is monitored by a looser notion of salience, which emerges from the transference of a salience-marking…

Discusses differences in academic discourse presentation, including preference for the use of first person singular "I" in some languages vs. the "we" perspective in others. Data are presented concerning employment of the two perspectives in English, German, French, Russian, and Bulgarian research articles in linguistics. Suggests explanations and…

Addresses the discourse domains of academic writing in English and Polish using the example of school writing. The English argumentative-expository essay is related to its potential counterpart in Polish.(Author/VWL)

Reviews research on apologies, considering research goals and results in assessing the "maturity" of apology research. Argues that such research needs to progress beyond a descriptive goal to an explanatory goal in terms of the underlying cultural assumptions that inform the perception of contextual factors that in turn inform apology…

Explores the gap between teachers' and students' beliefs about which activities are most useful in the English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) classroom. Data were collected by questionnaire and interview from 158 EFL students and 30 EFL teachers in a Hong Kong university. (Author/VWL)

Examined past-tense inflection of verbs in Norwegian. Data from specifically language-impaired children, normally developing children, and adults were studied by a test constructed to find how input factors such as type and token of frequency and phonological acquisition influence acquisition of past-tense inflection. The goal was to learn whether…

Reading Phillipson's "Linguistic Imperialism" in a World Englishes graduate seminar at Purdue University prompted intense discussion not only on the issues the author raised, but also on the rhetorical style and strategies that he chose to present a story of oppression. This article documents the reactions of the students.(Author/VWL)

Presents results from study of language attitudes and linguistic behavior among adolescents of both sexes in a rural community in Denmark. Study concludes that traditional pattern of boys/men speaking in a significantly more non-standard way than girls/women is reproduced in present context, and in qualitative attitude-questionnaire male…

Investigates tense, modality, and aspect in the English of adult Malay speakers. Tense and aspect (TA) in Malay and English are first contrasted to arrive at a specification of what Malay speakers have to learn about English TA. Then the use of TA in two English conversations with Malay-speaking subjects is examined and compared with a…

Suggests that silence--avoidance or termination of talk in problematic and face-threatening situations-is used by hard-of-hearing people as a face-saving strategy in communication with hearing people. One hundred hearing-impaired people were asked to list situations in which they refrain from conversation due to embarrassment. (Author/JL)