Discusses several philosophies of linguistics and semiotics that debate the importance of words and their relationship to signs, language as the primary modeling system, and the historical primacy of verbal versus visual communication. Describes human communication as both language-based and nonverbal, both aspects inviting arbitrary and abstract…

States that constructivism is a theory of knowledge which asserts that knowledge is not primarily received, but actively built, and that the function of cognition is adaptive and serves the organization of the experiential world. Gives a brief history and discusses impact of the constructivist approach. (RT)

In order to teach anything, two fundamental questions must be asked and answered continually: What should be taught, and how should it be taught? The answer to the second question is highly dependent on the answer to the first, but the present answer to the first question is inadequate and inappropriate to today's communication tools. Language…

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…