Facets of Linguistics Linguistics (the study of human sp

The purpose of this report is to review four current articles examining some facet of linguistics. As a whole, the reviewed material will provide an illustration of the wide scope of the field and the diverse language issues with which it deals.

Linguistics: Scope of the Field and Language Issues

Although linguistics is often characterized as a highly conceptual field of study or discipline, many of the language issues with which it deals are quite practical. In other words, there is an applied component to the discipline. One example of this applied element can be seen in a study conducted by Williams (1992) which sought to increase the comprehensibility of the language of teaching assistants who were non-native speakers of English, a group which Williams refers to as International Teaching Assistants or ITAs.

Specifically, Williams (1992) looked at the effect of discourse marking on the comprehensibility of the speech of 24 ITAs. Discourse marking involves improving the quality of instructional explanations through the use of such cues or signals as definitions, illustrations or examples, restatement, introductions, identifications, and summaries.

In Williams' study, ITAs provided i

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emonstrated that CUE VALIDITY predicts the order in which children learn grammar. However, research has also shown that CUE VALIDITY does not account for age variance in the weights assigned to cues. The CM model is expanded upon by MacWhinney and Bates in that they explain this variance through postulating that as children mature they shift from the use of CUE VALIDITY to the use of CONFLICT VALIDITY. CONFLICT VALIDITY is said to occur when children note those cases where cues compete and reset their linguistic cognitions to recognize cues that are correct or "win" in such situations. CUE COST is the concept used by MacWhinney and Bates to explain the shift. As the authors put it: This developmental shift is explained primarily in terms of CUE COST; some cues are more costly for children to process than others. Detectability (e.g. of unstressed syllables) may be a problem at a young age...maturation may enable a child to handle constructions previously beyond its capacity. (MacWhinney & Bates, 1993, p. 464) Comments: Regarding the CM model, the authors argue that it can be used not only to explain language acquisition but also to explain a wide variety of other linguistic processes. This is a bold statement. As stat
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1539
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)