The research aimsto explore the cognitive-semantic structure of the above child rights phenomenon through the language analysis, and compare the perceptions of different stakeholders as target audiences with regard to diverse formats of the Convention contents and its essence representation. The research data combines academic literature on the…

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 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…

A network model of logical and semantic structures from which speakers or writers generate linguistic messages at the discourse level is presented. (Author)

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)

Analysis of the use of the connective "but" by 3- to 9-year-olds indicated that all most commonly used the word to signal semantic relationships and for pragmatic functions. Younger children most frequently used "but" when causal or precausal relationships existed, and older children used "but" more to encode complex contrast. (Author/CB)

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…

This study documents the instances of code-switching and interference in the speech of a bilingual child living in Rome, Italy, with his American mother and Italian father. (CFM)

This research describes and analyses the type of verbal discourse and interactions among the children in a group-solving situation. Two groups of five children ages 6, 7 and 8, from two different cultures, were observed: one at an English-speaking summer camp in Beirut, Lebanon, and another at a parallel site, a neighbourhood group in Kentucky, in…

The paper examines the nominal lexicon in later language acquisition as a window on linguistic knowledge and usage across childhood and adolescence. The paper presents a psycholinguistically motivated and cognitively grounded analysis of the distribution of ten semantic noun categories (the Noun Scale) across development, modality, and genre.…

A collection of 17 papers, most presented at the Fifth International Conference on Contrastive Projects in June 1982 in Finland, includes: "Present Trends in Contrastive Linguistics,""Contrastive Linguistics in Bulgaria,""Communicative Competence in Foreign Language Teaching: A Project Report,""From Traditional…