A total of 35 children – 20 with expressive specific language impairment (SLI-E) and 15 typically developing (TD) peers – were compared longitudinally from 24 to 36 months with respect to their production of syllable shapes in 10-minute spontaneous speech samples. SLI-E 24-month-olds predominantly produced earlier developing syllable shapes containing vowels, liquids, and glides. TD 24-month-olds and SLI-E 36-month-olds produced approximately the same proportion of syllable types, with the exception of consonant clusters, where TD 24-month-olds produced more than SLI-E 36-month-olds. TD children at 36 months showed the greatest use of syllable shapes containing two different consonants and consonant clusters. Detailed analyses revealed that SLI-E children produced fewer syllable shapes containing final consonants, more than one consonant type, and consonant clusters. Furthermore, the children with SLI-E were found to vocalize less often than their TD peers. The possible relationships between these findings, SLI-E children's concomitant deficits in morphology and syntax, and the implications for diagnosis and remediation are discussed.

The study explores the effects of the relationship between exposure to two languages in childhood and metalinguistic abilities. Arabic-speaking children who had been exposed to both spoken and literary Arabic were compared to Russian–Hebrew bilinguals and Hebrew monolinguals. All of the children were in kindergarten or first grade. The tests included language arbitrariness, phonological awareness, and vocabulary. As compared to the Hebrew monolinguals, the Russian–Hebrew bilinguals revealed the following pattern: higher performance on arbitrariness and phonological awareness tasks and lower performance on the vocabulary measure. The results of the Arab children mimicked those of the Russian–Hebrew bilinguals and differed from those of the Hebrew monolinguals. We conclude that exposure to literary Arabic requires the same intensive language analyses as those demanded of children exposed to languages as different as Russian and Hebrew.

Complex syntactic structures may be difficult to recognize when produced using augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems that do not contain grammatical markers. The present study investigated adult English speakers' production of Subject and Object relative clause sentences using a picture/symbol-based AAC system with speech output. Most participants avoided the potential ambiguity that resulted from the absence of grammatical markers. They followed spoken English word order when encoding Object relative clause sentences, but altered this order for Subject relative clause sentences. Most participants used constituent proximity to maintain the distinction between Subject and Object relative clause sentences. Results indicate the combined effects of underlying syntactic knowledge and pragmatic variables on the AAC constituent order patterns observed.

The purpose of this study was to examine whether phonological information was activated automatically in processing two-kanji compound words. In Experiment 1, 27 participants judged whether pairs of the words were homophones, while another 27 participants judged whether pairs were synonyms. Stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) was 140 ms, 230 ms, or 320 ms. In Experiment 2, 36 participants were asked to make one of the two judgments, as in Experiment 1. SOA was determined individually. The following results were found. Reaction times showed semantic interference. Phonological interference was observed only under the shortest SOA in Experiment 2. Error rates showed phonological and semantic interferences even when SOA was the longest. These findings support the universal phonological principle.

The relation between similarity and dissimilarity of meaning and similarity of context was analyzed for synonymous nouns. New semantic similarity and dissimilarity rating tests with an empirically determined series of linguistic anchors and conventional, arbitrarily anchored semantic similarity ratings were compared. Contextual similarity was elicited by a sorting test based on substitution and yielding d-primes. The study found reliable correlations between the d-primes and the different ratings for semantic similarity and dissimilarity of the synonymous nouns across a wide continuum of meaning. The data strongly supported a contextual hypothesis of meaning. The data endorsed the claim that people abstract a contextual representation from experiencing the multiple natural linguistic contexts of a word. Semantic similarity and dissimilarity rating formats with an empirically chosen series of linguistic anchors and a sorting test of contextual similarity yielded stronger support for a contextual hypothesis than did alternative methods of eliciting lexical and contextual similarity.

Data are presented on the development of tests of reading skill for primary school pupils in rural Tanzania. Instruction in these schools is in Kiswahili, a regularly spelled language. Using a translation of a standard reading test, children can read aloud all words once they have learned the sound– letter correspondences, regardless of comprehension. In addition, children can pass traditional comprehension tasks by decoding only some of the words. Three graded tests were developed to test children who had only some letter knowledge, could read single words, or were proficient readers. The tests required children both to decode and to understand the reading material in order to achieve high scores. The tests correlated well with scores on other educational achievement tests and showed age and school grade differences. It is suggested that these tests are useful measures of reading development in a regularly spelled language. Their adaptation to English and validation against standardized instruments are planned.

Of the cognitive neuroscience handbooks recently published, this, to my knowledge, is the only one that is entirely devoted to the neurology of language. In the editors' words, it is “intended as a state-of-the-art reference and resource book describing current research and theory in the many subfields of neurolinguistics and their clinical applications.” It is intended for “the newcomer to the field, as well as the expert.”

I believe that I do not worry unduly about the animal in me, nor fear that what little humanity I possess will be lost if I try to understand other animals better. (Stokoe, 1983)

As we journey into the new millennium, few among us would bother to argue against the importance of English as a world language, especially considering its role in technology, industry, and politics. Many people of the world are introduced to English as a modern version of a contact language, since the need to know it occurs simultaneously with the need for specific knowledge (to negotiate borders and so on). Of course, there is much to the story of language contact. As Mary Louise Pratt (1992) observed, contact situations are often catastrophic events involving power relations that include conquerors and the conquered, intermediaries, onlookers, and more. The position of English as a national language in many countries and its worldwide influence have occurred within the context of civil wars, political negotiation, constant transmigration, globalization, and the formulation and reconstruction of nationalist ideologies and identities. Though the nature of today's contact may seem benign, its result may still be catastrophic and have far-reaching consequences, as the ideology and practices that accompany English may not complement all societies and situations. Today, the United States often represents the global influence of English, and as America becomes the symbol of border and civil war negotiation and policing, technology, art, conflict and power, so too does English. Predictably, the people and polities throughout the world wrestle with America's ideological influence by participating in the invigoration and transformation of English to suit their needs.