Foreign language anxiety (FLA), whose impact is often negative on learners' cognitive processing, happens when a learner pursues a foreign language as a non-native speaker. This study aimed to investigate anxiety in learning English as a foreign language and its influence on learners' cognitive processes. The sample comprised graduate and…

This study examined the effects of communication mode ("i.e.", face to face versus computer mediated communication) on the instances of negotiation of meaning (NofM) and its level of noticing by learners. Sixty-four participants (32 dyads) completed two jigsaw tasks in two different mediums (one in each) and four days after the tasks…

Some of the metaphors that continue to guide educators' ways of understanding classroom life and education research have conceptual boundaries and limitations. These metaphors are referred to as Cartesian in order to locate them historically and within a cultural setting. The first type of metaphor serves as a conduit of language, in which…

Various communication studies have revealed the existence of a "preverbal" stage of communication consisting of centers within the brain that exists in an innate form or a form preprogrammed for future information acquired from the environment through experience (socialization). Such centers serve to prepare the individual for…

A discussion of the functions of human communication shows that underlying them is the cognitive process by which people have the ability to take the view of others, to internally represent reality, and to take into account knowledge and experience to choose future actions. These features of decentration and abstraction reveal the link between…

Illustrates how children constantly solve communication puzzles in the course of language acquisition and offers suggestions for teachers and parents to assist children in their understanding of language. (HTH)

This paper studies the relationship of artificial intelligence (AI) to the study of language and the representation of the underlying knowledge that supports the comprehension process. It develops the view that intelligence is based on the ability to use large amounts of diverse kinds of knowledge in procedural ways, rather than on the possession…

A comprehension model of simultaneous interpretation activity raises three types of problems: structure of semantic information stored in long-term memory, modalities of input processing and specific restrictions due to situation. A useful concept of semantic mnesic structures includes: (1) a componential-predicative lexicon; (2) a propositional…

Listening is a crucial element in the communication process. To date, however, research efforts have been unsuccessful in identifying the proper role that listening should play in the building of communication theory. To be a legitimate part of the communication process, listening must be placed in a conceptual framework similar to those found in…

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…

Compares the production of speech and sign: the approaches used in research, the cognitive processes involved, and the output timing mechanism. (AM)

Research indicates that people have two distinct information processing modalities, one for verbal material and one for nonverbal material. The nonverbal mode is used for visual images and is characterized by creative and relatively undisciplined associations. The verbal mode deals with abstract stimuli and is restrained by logic and the need to…

Language processing is the abstraction of meaning from a physical signal, such as a sequence of speech sounds. Processing a spoken message requires a series of transformations that begin with the acoustic signal arriving at the ears and end with meaning in the mind of the listener. The goal of this information-processing model is to describe how…

The experiments described in this paper compare inference-based and expectancy-based models of the comprehension of indirect, non-literal expressions. The inference-based model claims that the comprehension of non-literal meanings requires more and deeper processing than the comprehension of literal meanings. The expectancy-based model rests on…

This paper reviews some of the strategies the receiver uses in the process of comprehending a message in a foreign language and discusses some of the ways in which the listener/reader goes beyond the actual physical form of the message during this process. The role of guessing is discussed in the context of the following theories: the…