The Use of Words in Context, Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 1985
The Vocabulary of Collage Students
Cognition and Language: A Series in Psycholinguistics Series

The Speech Situation is a term worn with age in the teaching of public speaking in America. That it is comprised of occasion, speaker, and topic is a gross oversimplification. It also includes challenge, anxiety, emotion, fear, responsibility, faults of memory, and instants of pride. Out of the circumstances arise an increase in heart rate, a change in blood pressure, an abnormal pattern of breathing, a noticeable build­ up in perspiration, and an ongoing evaluation. For students this may be merely a grade or perhaps a series of evaluative remarks, possibly addressed both to the speaker and the other participants, the audience. It may entail a replaying of a record of the speech, indeed a videotape. Most important is the lasting impression that remains with all of the participants. What of the vocabulary of the speaker under the circumstances of the speech situation? This speaker - in the major portions of this work we may say, "this young man" - has spent time seeking an appropriate topic. He has outlined a composition around a central idea or thesis. He has marshaled evidence, details. He has framed an opening paragraph. He has been admonished not to give an essay, but to strive for audience contact, interpersonal communication. He makes his audible approach through his vocabulary and accompanying phonology. Under the tension, the speaker repeats; he adds meaningless vocalizations in periods that might logically be pauses. There are slips of the tongue. At worst, failing, he withdraws to await another day.

Section 1. Some Milestones in Tallies of American English Vocabularies.- Section 2. The Present Sample: A Comparison of Classroom Vocabularies of 1943–45 and 1979–81.- Section 3. Further Clues Held by Samples of Vocabularies.- Section 4. Samples of the Vocabularies of Black and White Students in Classroom Speaking.- Section 5. An Application of a Vocabulary Tally.- Appendix I. The Vocabularies of Students’ Speeches of 1943–45 and 1979–81, Arranged Alphabetically, and the Number of Occurrences of Each Word.- Appendix II. The Words of a Subsample of Recent Speeches of Appendix I and an Equal Sample of Words from Orations of College Students, Delivered at Least 50 Years Earlier.- Appendix III. Words Used in Eight Hours of Classroom Speeches of Students in Predominantly Black Colleges and in Eight Hours of Speeches in a Predominantly White College, and the Number of Occurrences of Each Word.- References.