We argue that language awareness and discourse analytical skills should be part of business communication curricula. To this end, we propose a three-step analytical model drawing on organizational and critical discourse studies, and approaches from systemic-functional linguistics, to explore agency and action in business communication. Focusing on…

A new metric, Word Maturity, estimates the development by individual students of knowledge of every word in a large corpus. The metric is constructed by Latent Semantic Analysis modeling of word knowledge as a function of the reading that a simulated learner has done and is calibrated by its developing closeness in information content to that of a…

Handwritten word recognition is a field of study that has largely been neglected in the psychological literature, despite its prevalence in society. Whereas studies of spoken word recognition almost exclusively employ natural, human voices as stimuli, studies of visual word recognition use synthetic typefaces, thus simplifying the process of word…

This article examines how a second-grader demonstrates that reading is not about decoding letters and words in linear order but is a more complex activity involving the reader's decisions with respect to several aspects of their knowledge of their language and how comprehension is key to transacting with texts. The paper observes and documents the…

This study examined the extent to which readers integrate information from related texts as a function of both top-down evaluation processes and bottom-up resonance. In Experiment 1, participants read and recalled ambiguous texts about events that were preceded by a descriptive text (primer) of the event. Participants' recall of the ambiguous…

Explores the concept of ambiity in semantic relationships, and discusses several causes of relational ambiguity, including differing world views, subtext construction, and selective focusing. Asserts that while most instances of relational ambiguity do not impair text comprehension, readers should be aware of possible ambiguities. (MM)