Since its modern inception in the late nineteenth century, research on word associations has developed into a large and diverse area of study, including work with both applied linguistic and psycholinguistic orientations. However, despite significant recent interest in the use of word association to investigate second language (L2) vocabulary…

The paper consists of a review of 24 studies on mental retardation published in two Soviet journals between 1970 and 1980. An introductory section focuses on the theoretical framework for mental retardation research in the Soviet Union with a differentiation between oligophrenics (who have organic brain damage) and the intellectually backward (or…