do i know its wrong: children’s and adults’ use of unconventional grammar in text messaging

There is concern that the violations of conventional grammar (both accidental and deliberate) often seen in text messages (e.g., hi how is ya?!!) could lead to difficulty in learning or remembering formal grammatical conventions. We examined whether the grammatical violations made by 244 British children, adolescents and young adults in their text messages was related to poorer performance on tasks of grammatical knowledge, including translating grammatically unconventional text messages into standard English. We found that variance in the production of grammatical violations in naturalistic messages was inconsistently predicted by grammatical task performance. Specifically, primary school children who made poorer grammar-based spelling choices were more likely to make more grammatical violations in their everyday messages, and university students who failed to correct more grammatical errors in a given set of messages were also more likely to make such errors in their own messages. There were no significant relationships for secondary school students. We conclude that using unconventional grammar when texting is not a consistent sign of poor grammatical abilities, although there may be links between some aspects of grammatical skill and grammatical violations in text messages.     

Private foundation funding of applied communication research

Communication researchers increasingly have a primed and attentive audience in private foundations. Yet most foundations are quite dissimilar to the types of organizations that we as communication scholars know and understand. Here we discuss private foundation funding for applied communication research, including how funding priorities are set, and how potential grantees may position themselves for foundation funds. In doing so, we focus on five norms that characterize American private foundations and their program staff: (1) social betterment, (2) organizational interdependency, (3) personal commitment, (4) future orientation, and (5) external generalizability. How well you and your proposal match up with these norms will affect your success with private foundations.     

Notes on contributors

The author participated in the Border Studies Program in the fall semester of 1999. He carried out his field study as a volunteer at Casa Vides in El Paso, Texas. Grounded in the same philosophical principles as the Catholic Worker movement, Casa Vides serves as a shelter for immigrants who are involved in political asylum proceedings in the United States. Because all of the residents of the intentional community of Casa Vides experienced militarization in their home countries and on the Mexico-U.S. border, this ethnography examines the themes of ''community'' and ''militarization'' and the dynamics between the two.     

New books in review

BULWER AND MACREADY: A CHRONICLE OF THE EARLY VICTORIAN THEATRE. Edited by Charles H. Shattuck. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1958; pp vii+278. $5.75.

THE KABUKI THEATRE. By Earle Ernst. New York: Grove Press, 1959; pp. xxiii+296. With 58 half‐tone illustrations. Paper $2.45.

JAPANESE THEATRE. By Faubion Bowers. New York: Hill and Wang, 1959; pp. xxi+294. Paper $2.25.

DIRECTING THE PLAY: FROM SELECTION TO OPENING NIGHT. John Wray Young. New York: Harper, 1958; pp. xiv+171. $3.50.

THE ANATOMY OF AMERICAN POPULAR CULTURE, 1840–1861. By Carl Bode. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1959; pp. xxii+292. $6.00.

ERNESTINE ROSE AND THE BATTLE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS. By Yuri Suhl. New York: Reynal, 1959; pp. x+310. $5.75.

“SUNSET”; COX: IRREPRESSIBLE DEMOCRAT. By David Lindsey. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1959; pp. xx+323. $5.00.

ROAD OF PROPAGANDA: THE SEMANTICS OF BIASED COMMUNICATION. By Karin Dovring. Introduction by Harold D. Lass‐well. New York: Philosophical Library, 1959; pp. 158. $4.75.

PERSONALITY AND PERSUASIBILITY. By Irving L. Janis, Carl I. Hovlund, and others. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959; xiv+333. $5.00.

FALLACY: THE COUNTERFEIT OF ARGUMENT. By W. Ward Fearnside and William B. Holther. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice‐Hall, 1959; pp. vi+218. Paper $1.95.

TEACHING: A PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS. By C. M. Fleming. New York: John Wiley, 1958; pp. xiii+291. $5.00.

THEORY AND TECHNIQUE OF INTERPRETATION. By Martin Cobin. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice‐Hall, 1959; pp. xii+256. $4.50.

CREATIVE DISCUSSION. By Rupert L. Cort‐right and George L. Hinds. New York: Macmillan, 1959; pp. xii+303. $4.50.

REPRESENTATIVE AMERICAN SPEECHES: 1958–1959. The Reference Shelf, Vol. 31, No. 3. Edited by A. Craig Baird. New York: H. W. Wilson, 1959; pp. 195. $2.50.     

Pick of the paperbacks

The purpose of this‐study was twofold: 1) To quantify the nature and extent of in‐house communication training, and 2) To collect such data from those individuals who actually conduct in‐house training. Data were obtained from questionnaires mailed to 118 members of the Pittsburgh chapter of the American Society for Training and Development. This sample represented 97 different corporations, some of which are the largest and most successful in the world. Results focused on the following major topics: 1) The relative importance of various communication skills, 2) The number of respondents offering training in the various communication skills, 3) The goals of communication training, 4) The barriers in implementing communication training, 5).The target groups receiving communication training, and 6) The attitudes of trainers towards communication training.     

Ethnography’s capacity to contribute to the cumulation of theory: a case study of differentiation–polarisation theory

The paper sets out to examine the role that ethnographic work can and should play in the development of sociological theory, focusing on the case study of differentiation–polarisation theory. It provides a detailed discussion of the work of Hargreaves (1967 Hargreaves, D. 1967. Social relations in a secondary school, London: Routledge. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), Lacey (1970 Lacey, C. 1970. Hightown Grammar: the school as a social system, Manchester: Manchester University Press.  [Google Scholar]) and Ball (1981 Ball, S. 1981. Beachside Comprehensive. a case‐study of secondary schooling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.  [Google Scholar]) and assesses the degree to which their work was ethnographic in contemporary terms. It argues that the model of theory development they offer does not need to be understood in the manner adopted by Hammersley in his account of their work as a model for theory development and testing in the sociology of education. Rather it requires the ethnographer to be more attuned towards setting and maintaining a theoretical agenda, by (a) being more preoccupied with refining existing or established theoretical ideas and concepts and (b) retaining the capacity for the fieldwork setting to inform and direct the study.     

Developing Expertise With Classroom Assessment in K–12 Science: Learning to Interpret Student Work. Interim Findings From a 2-Year Study

This article reports findings on growth in 3 science teachers' expertise with interpretation of student work over 1 year of participation in a program. The program was designed to strengthen classroom assessment. Using a framework for classroom assessment expertise, we analyze patterns of teacher learning, and the roles of the professional program and the quality of the assessments provided with teachers' instructional materials.     

A brief screening battery for predicting school achievement at ages seven and nine years

This article describes the development, utilization, and evaluation of an early screening battery for predicting school success or failure. The battery was administered to the pediatric population of the Southern California Permanente Medical Group, Panorama City Medical Center, at the time of the routine five-year health examination. For 411 children whose school performance was assessed by the teacher at age seven years, the Caldwell Test was the best predictor, but it had significant value for girls only (p<0.0001). In 1,251 children evaluated at age nine years, the Beery-Butkenica Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration (VMI) and the Caldwell Test were the best predictors (p⩽0.003). In 600 children for whom we had teacher ratings at ages seven and nine years, the VMI repeated at age seven years significantly predicted academic achievement and reading at age nine years for girls and boys (p = 0.007). Although combining the academic performance with VMI results at age seven years yielded 89% accuracy of prediction at age nine years, the false-positive rate represents a serious practical problem of mislabeling children as school failures.     

The Virtual Classroom Experience: Viewpoints from Computing and Humanities

In this article we first describe the past and current status of educational technology at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) (http://www.njit.edu). We then discuss the main points of deliberation for students, faculty and administrators involving learning via the World Wide Web and other information technologies, such as the Virtual Classroom TM (http://www.vc.njit.edu). Implementation and expansion of Web-based instructional activities at NJIT is occurring in all colleges of the university. In the Computer and Information Science (CIS) and Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) departments, there is an ongoing and concerted effort to find practical applications of technology that meet educational ends. Such productive mergers highlight the complex issues that exist among instructional staff, administrative concerns and distance learning technologies. We conclude with a suggestion as to how such activity, in concert with a more developed communications tec hnology infrastructure, can serve to enhance the educational experience and outcomes of NJIT students.