The goal of this study is to investigate the acquisition of causal relations with parce que "because" and temporal relations with quand "when" by children between age 3 and 5. We aim at identifying whether different discourse type, conversation and narration, allow children to use quand and parce que with different semantic…

This article discusses the function of a particular feature of sign language--mouth action--as it is expressed in various discourse contexts. Specifically, we examine forms of mouthing and mouth gesture as they are used in signed narrative and expository texts, highlighting the signers' choices during the production of these two text types. We…

This article investigates the acquisition of different types of clefts and of "be"-fragments in European Portuguese. We first present the main syntactic and discourse properties of different cleft structures and of "be"-fragments in European Portuguese, and we discuss how data from first language acquisition may contribute to…

The aim of this research is to identify and analyse the ubiquitous learning acquired through blending education settings devoted to the "lifelong training of trainers" and how these contribute to the development of a conscious, critic and engaged citizenship. Through active exploration of the learning process, the study analyses the…

Purpose: Prior studies of discourse comprehension have concluded that the deficits of persons with aphasia (PWA) in syntactically based comprehension of sentences in isolation are not predictive of deficits in comprehension of sentences in discourse (Brookshire & Nicholas, 1984; Caplan & Evans, 1990). However, these studies used semantically…

The goal of language comprehension for humans is not just to decode the semantic content of sentences, but rather to grasp what speakers intend to communicate. To infer speaker meaning, listeners must at minimum assess whether and how the literal meaning of an utterance addresses a question under discussion in the conversation. In cases of…

The present paper researches the abilities of Turkish adults from Bulgaria to create narratives. It analyses the narratives of the adults using discourse strategies. The findings show some problems of bilingual adults in creating narratives which are not discussed in the scientific literature. This paper brings some new knowledge to the field of…

This paper describes a study in which Systemic Functional Linguistics was applied to describe how people who stutter use language. The aim of the study was to determine and describe any differences in language use between a group of 10 adults who stutter and 10 matched normally-fluent speakers. In addition to formal linguistic analyses, analyses…

The history of the evolution of language assessments for children and adults with language disorders is described briefly. This is followed by a discussion on language assessment of the clinical population with an emphasis on linguistic profiling, illustrated through the Linguistic Profile Test. Discourse analysis, in particular, is highlighted…

This study examined information about adjective meanings available in adults' spoken discourse in the original 27 CHILDES corpora of typically developing English-speaking children. In order to increase the probability that adjectives would be novel to children to whom they were addressed, only "rare" adjectives were examined (those that occurred…

Examined whether problems of the same semantic cluster correlated with each other as problems that people experience. Semantically similar behaviors like "showing affection" and "revealing personal things" did covary as problems. (Author/BEF)

Purpose: Semantic feature analysis (SFA) was used to determine whether training contextually related words would improve the discourse of individuals with nonfluent aphasia in preselected contexts. Method: A modified multiple-probes-across-behaviors design was used to train target words using SFA in 3 adults with nonfluent aphasia. Pretreatment,…

A study investigated the inferential processing involved in the comprehension of a class of complex predicates (such as "remember to,""manage to,""fail to," and "neglect to") that are known as implicative. The subjects, 64 college students, were timed while they drew inferences from syntactically affirmative…

A study was conducted to measure the effect on reading comprehension of forcing attention to different levels of analysis. Results indicated that for adult fluent readers, and--to a lesser extent--for children, attentional orienting tasks affected the amount and type of information recalled from reading a paragraph. (MKM)

Examines the quality of conversation produced by small groups of subjects in fifth, ninth, and twelfth grades and the last year of college. Results supported Piaget's sequence of conversational development. However, topical coherence apparently is not fostered by focused turns but emerges as a generalization of the normative constraints applying…