This paper explores a general approach to paraphrase generation using a pre-trained seq2seq model fine-tuned using a back-translated anatomy and physiology textbook. Human ratings indicate that the paraphrase model generally preserved meaning and grammaticality/fluency: 70% of meaning ratings were above 75, and 40% of paraphrases were considered…

A number of studies have demonstrated strong links between students' language features (as found in spoken and written production) and their math performance. However, no studies have examined links between the students' language features and measures of their Math Identity. This project extends prior studies that use natural language processing…

In 2014, in conjunction with doing research in natural language processing and attending a global conference on computational linguistics, the author decided to learn a new foreign language, Greek, that uses a non-English character set. This paper/session will present/discuss an overview of the current state of natural language processing and…

Recent research on Chinese orthography is reviewed in a discussion of the relationship between orthographic symbols and reading processes. Specifically, these issues are addressed with relation to research findings: the difficulty of learning Chinese logographs, particularly with regard to learning disabilities and biliteracy; whether reading in…

Current research on information processing suggests that short term memory plays a central role in the sorting and manipulation of text information during reading. Because an entire text cannot be processed simultaneously, successive "chunks" or units of information enter the short term memory where they are compared to the reader's previous…

To determine if imagery mediates memory for signs and words, 80 sign-language-fluent Ss -- half of whom were congenitally deaf and half of whom were normal-hearing -- were tested by varying the imagery values of stimuli. The relative efficacy of word and sign codes in processing and retrieving information was studied by systematically varying the…

There appear to be two basic theories about the relationship of written language to oral language and the relationship of writing to reading. The first theory views written language as a derivative of oral language and as an alternate but parallel form of oral language. The pedagogical implications of this model suggest that the problems of…

A schema developed for the teaching of reading involves five factors: learning, language, clues, mediums of communication, and adaptive processes. Learning involves four tasks, taught in the following sequence: comprehension, comparison of semantic shapes, composition of the whole into parts, and concentration. There are four general language…

The validity of recent research concerning invented spelling, the developmental stages in children's writing, and whether children will attempt writing before reading and continue writing while learning to read were examined. Five developmental stages in spelling have been identified: (1) the precommunicative stage, involving the use of random…

To answer important questions for educators concerning language skills, this paper argues that children must acquire new skills in order to process written language, and that the need for developing new skills stems from differences between oral and written language that are more fundamental than differences in mode. The paper first describes how…

This study investigated the development of oral metalinguistic abilities in 140 children (ages 5-12) with oral language or reading impairments. The study focused on determining the difficulties that children with these different types of problems have at different ages in the elementary school years and determining how metalinguistic abilities…

A study of the written language that was produced within one junior high school social studies classroom over a 38-minute period was based on the assumptions that (1) written language is not only affected by the context of the communicative event in which it is involved, but is also involved in the construction of the communicative event; (2) the…

To determine the relationship between oral and written language conventions at the macro and micro levels, a study analyzed various elements of stories generated by children. Subjects, nine above average readers between grades 4 and 9, were asked to tell a story and then to write a story. Sources of stories, overall plot organization, and number…

A cloze-type procedure can be used effectively to teach interpreters how to anticipate what the speaker will say, inferring communicative intention. The exercise uses a text from which words are deleted, not randomly as in the true cloze procedure, but in significant locations or contexts. The words or groups of words suppressed are progressively…

The role of language transfer in the acquisition of English as a second language as indicated in the production of relative clauses was examined. Analysis of adult Arab students' written responses to a variety of test types revealed that (1) language transfer is a significant factor in second language acquisition; (2) there is a distinction…