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The prelinguistic child's attempts at communication cannot be viewed as rudimentary language. More than cataloguing overt acts, we need to understand the functional character of both language and non-language communication capabilities, and in particular the maturational stages of the internal communication systems that produce overt behavior in human beings. To describe the child's behavior without considering the nature and organization of the neural systems that produce the behavior is unreasonable. Above all, it must be realized that the child's observable behavior is only the tip of a neuropsychological iceberg. The conclusion that developmental stages are mere theoretical constructs, abstractions from a process that is actually continuous in nature, could only result from ignoring this fact. The forebrain limbic systems that became elaborated in primates constitute the primary level of human communication. The second arises at about 12 months in the form of neocortically based conceptual systems, including gestural behavior encoding components of propositional elements such as agent, patient, dative, etc., until recently largely ignored by psycholinguists. Only from about 20 months does the child use syntactical and morphological indicators to systematically encode components of the underlying conceptual message, and only at this point can the acquisition of a language system be said to have begun. (Author/AM)

The 50 papers on English language and literature included in this compilation are grouped under the following headings: Old English (editing "Judgment Day," the syntactic types "every man" and "each of men," and continuity and variation in psalm glosses); Present-Day English (speech rate and vowel quantity as compared with Finnish): neutralization in generative phonology; nouns ending in "-ee"; embedding in legal English; conversion; term-formation in engineering; lexicology; aspects of dialect space; "go to" and "will" in spoken English; preterite and perfect in British news bulletins; semantics of terminologies; secular, doctrinal, and supernatural illocutionary acts; cohesion and coherence in short expository essays; pronominal chains in conversation; argumentative text structure; content and sentence structure in simplified and abridged texts; the transferred epithet and body language; term papers in research projects; comparison of spoken and written English; adverbials; discourse analysis; English in Sweden); Teaching of English (intonation and Norwegian students; difficulty in English as a foreign language; technological developments; British politics); and literature (controversy over literary theory; comedy and twentieth-century drama; medieval portraiture; the song "Little Son Hugh"; folktales; partition in Indo-English novels; and 12 authors: William Shakespeare, John Milton, Thomas Otway, Mary Wollstonecraft, Samuel Coleridge, Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Sewell, Thomas Hardy, Hans Andersen, D. H. Lawrence, Andre Brink, Tom Stoppard). (MSE)

This paper presents the results of a study on communicative interaction patterns of three nonspeaking children (ages 8-12) with physical disabilities and their adult speaking conversation partners in three different interaction situations (with a speech therapist in a rehabilitation center, during conversation with their mothers at home, and during mealtime with an assistant at school). Results showed that the speaking adult dominated the content and the flow of the conversation with the exception of one assistant whose style of interaction positively stimulated the children's initiating behavior. Little variance was found between interaction patterns in the home situation and in the therapy situation. Two children predominantly used vocalization and gesture, alone or in combination, across all situations. The third child predominantly used eyegaze. The children made minimal use of their communication aids, which were non-electronic aids with Blissymbols and pictographs. The children used their aids primarily as a means to initiate topics. (JDD)

The paper reports on a project which examined the communication of a 10-year-old Swedish boy with severe retardation and multiple disabilities. Interviews, observations, and videorecordings were used. Communication categories included body language, gestures, head position, gaze/eye contact, and sound/mouth and tongue use. The child was found to communicate with gestures and body language and to have no understanding of pictures or symbols. Interaction patterns were identified from the videofilming technique and include patterns typical of newborn infants, including caregiver initiation, child orientation, and child motor activity. The child's need for plenty of time to absorb input was noted. Includes 10 references. (DB)

The present paper is part of a long range research project in Developmental Kinesics. The gist of the project is empirical: the object is to find out what happens rather than look for anything in particular or test a hypothesis. The methodology for the analysis is ethological in approach. Empirical observations are carefully described. Subsequently, attempts are made to classify these observations according to the structure which emerges from the data, and to discern possible causes and effects. This specific paper presents the results of the sub-project dealing with Black Kinesics. Ten hours of live video tape were recorded. The subjects were 36 Black children, ranging from three to eighteen years of age. All children were healthy, of good intelligence, residents of Nashville, Tennessee, and from three different social backgrounds: professional, skilled and unskilled labor. Subjects were told stories by an adult and were asked to retell the story to other subjects. Interactants were randomly mixed and grouped according to age, sex, sibling status, and socioeconomic status. Most subjects appeared in three situations--as hearer to adult speaker, as speaker to another child, and as hearer to a child. The story teller and all the children were Black, as were all the technicians on the television crew who did the taping. Observations made as a result of the project show that the child's non-verbal behavior follows a developmental curve depending on age and that there are striking differences in behavior according to sex. (Author/JM)

The emphasis in this paper is on developing teacher awareness of how nonverbal communication fits into the classroom setting. Various positive and negative aspects of this phase of communication in the classroom are explored. A classroom teacher is observed closely by students every day, and her/his attitude, feelings, mood or state of mind, communicated nonverbally, are interpreted and reacted to by the class. Positive feelings, such as enthusiasm, happiness, and interest are conveyed easily by the teacher's posture, facial expressions and movements. A teacher's concern for, and acceptance of, students can create a classroom atmosphere that will encourage similar positive feelings in students. Negative attitudes, prejudices, and biases are also clearly disclosed nonverbally. Teachers, also, read the nonverbal communications coming from students. Comprehension, understanding, interest, and involvement as opposed to puzzlement, misunderstanding, boredom, and withdrawal can have an extremely important influence upon the teacher's decisions in regard to possible changes in strategy in presenting classroom material. Nonverbal behaviors indicating possible disciplinary problems arising can be clearly read by a teacher. Fully comprehending the effect of both verbal and nonverbal behavior upon the quality of learning that occurs in the classroom enables a teacher to promote a desirable teaching-learning process and closer teacher-student relationships. (JD)

Within the framework of viewing communicative competence as a prerequisite to linguistic competence, rather than vice versa, this paper considers the following: (1) the nature of communicative competence; (2) the implications of communicative competence for second language teaching; and (3) ways in which the teacher can begin to make a foreign language program more meaningful. Communicative competence is defined as what native speakers know which enables them to interact effectively with each other. Implications for the language teacher include: (1) the need for tests which measure the ability to use language; (2) the irrelevancy of sequencing surface features; (3) the need for emphasis on non-linguistic aspects of communication; and (4) the need to re-examine attitudes toward students and language teaching. Practical suggestions for implementing communicative competence in the classroom include the use of spontaneous role-playing, discussions, games, radio, and the telephone. (AM)

This paper describes a silent film made by the author which illustrates various French gestures. The format is Super 8, and the film lasts five minutes. The script is given, along with an English translation. The story concerns several French students at an outdoor cafe wondering about one of their friends. The conversation includes 10 typical French gestures, including those showing amazement, disbelief, power, greetings, and drinking. All 10 gestures are described in this paper, as well as incidental aspects of French culture which appear in the film. The pedagogical applications of the film follow its description. Several ideas for projects similar to this one are proposed. These include presentations using several different media to be made both abroad and at home. Emphasis is placed on involving students in the work. The paper concludes with a statement of the importance of studying nonverbal communication. (Author/AM)

Designed to provide clues to research questions on sex differences nonverbal in communication, this paper contains the results of dyadic conversations processed on video tape. Twelve undergraduate and graduate student volunteers were solicited along with employed nonstudents between the ages of 19 and 30. Results indicated that males displayed more nonverbal gestures than did females, regardless of the sex of the conversation partner, and that males displayed slightly more gestures with males than with females. The findings of this study indicated that nonverbal communication serves as an illustrator of and a supplement to the verbal element, but also acts as the functor for gender display. The data from the study are presented in both narrative and table format. (RB)

This section contains conference papers on testing and evaluation in second language teaching. They include: "English Language Entrance Examinations in Japan: Problems and Solutions" (James Dean Brown); "Reliability and a Learner Style Questionnaire" (Dale T. Griffee); "Does It Work?" Evaluating Language Learning Tasks" (Rod Ellis); "Communicative Oral Testing" (Marion Delarche, Nicholas Marshall); "Evaluation of Gestures in Non-Verbal Communication" (Barry O'Sullivan); "Our Experiments in Oral Communication Tests" (Shuichi Yonezawa); "Simulations: A Tool for Testing 'Virtual Reality' in the Language Classroom" (Randall S. Davis); "Evaluation of Listening-Focused Classes" (Yoshinobu Niwa, Kazuo Iwata); and "Interpreting Teacher and Course Evaluations" (T. R. Honkomp). Individual papers contain references. (MSE)

The paper proposes that research efforts should be focused on understanding the non-linguistic functioning of individuals with severe degrees of mental retardation, recognizing its place as a potential stand-alone system in satisfying communicative needs and options, and understanding the mechanisms that account for the presence and use of such a system. It describes a research project which analyzed the non-linguistic functioning of persons with profound mental retardation who resided in a California education/treatment center. Subjects tended to use elemental forms of non-linguistic communication which served basic functions. Low frequency of pointing gestures, coupled with higher than expected frequencies of more elemental forms, may indicate that pointing can serve as a transition bridge to the acquisition of more refined gestures. The low frequency of natural gestures may indicate that formal language acquisition should not be expected of this population. Project data indicated the need to incorporate potential co-occurrence measures, such as cognitive and environmental intrusiveness measures, into the research paradigm. Includes 14 references. (JDD)

Teacher enthusiasm has been linked to increased student achievement and attentiveness. Although enthusiasm is often mentioned to teachers and preservice teachers as being important, they are rarely trained in the particulars of enthusiastic teaching. This investigation was designed to explicate relationships among enthusiasm behaviors in a natural classroom setting. Subjects, four outstanding instructors from West Virginia University, were filmed during two class sessions for 30 minutes each to assess 5 enthusiasm behaviors (eye contact, facial expression, vocalization, gestures, and movement). The presence or absence of these behaviors was scored in 10-second snapshots divided into 2-second intervals for each minute. Concurrent and sequential relations of the enthusiasm behaviors were established by determining which behaviors consistently occurred simultaneously or preceded other enthusiasm behaviors. The results revealed strong concurrent dependencies and sequential dependencies consistently used by these outstanding teachers. Findings may have implications for teacher training and research on the construct of teacher enthusiasm. (Contains 23 references.) (Author/LL)

This longitudinal study explored how gestures changed with with respect to speech as two children progressed from producing single words to producing two-word combinations. Two girls were followed from the production of only single words to their first production of two-word combinations. One child was followed from 14.5 to 18 months; the second child was followed from 15.5 to 22 months. Children were videotaped during spontaneous play sessions; both the mother and researcher interacted with the children. All gestures and speech produced by the children were coded. Three analyses of relationships between gesture and speech were conducted. All communications were classified as gesture alone, speech alone, or gesture and speech combined. The timing of the gesture with respect to the speech stream was determined. Finally, relationships between information conveyed by speech and information conveyed by gesture were described. The data collected suggest that the relationship between gesture and speech changes around the time children begin producing two-word combinations. Shortly before the onset of two-word communication, children begin conveying two ideas, one in gesture and one in speech, within the bounds of a single, tightly timed communicative act. Thus, young children appear to demonstrate skills necessary for two-word speech initially in communications which combine gesture and speech. (MM)

Issues in nonverbal communication and their implications for school personnel directors are examined in this literature review. The first section presents research findings pertaining to the nonverbal behavior of school administrators, particularly that of principals. Literature on nonverbal behavior exhibited during the employment interview is presented in the second section. The final section presents the following conclusions: (1) nonverbal behavior plays a role in staff members' perceptions of an administrator and in an administrator's communication effectiveness; (2) specific nonverbal behaviors can be identified as positive or negative; and (3) specific nonverbal behaviors of a job applicant can influence the employment interview. Further study is needed to explore the relationships between the school personnel director's perceptions of an applicant's nonverbal behavior and his/her potential administrative success, and between a director's perceptions and his/her own individual characteristics. (Contains 56 references.) (LMI)