Providing a comprehensive survey of cutting-edge work on second language learning, this "Handbook," written by a team of leading experts, surveys the nature of second language learning and its implications for teaching. Prominent theories and methods from linguistics, psycholinguistics, processing-based, and cognitive approaches are…

This paper is written to have a preliminary introduction about psycholinguistics. Psycholinguistics or psychology of language is the study of the interrelation between linguistic factors and psychological aspects. The main subject of research in psycholinguistics is the study of cognitive processes that underlie the comprehension and production of…

Recent developments in cognitive science are assessed as challenge to well established view in philosophy of linguistics that meaning is inherent to language and is relatively fixed. Information provided by words and sentences, language comprehension, constructions of interpretations (not meanings), and arguments against relativism are discussed.…

An experiment is reported which permitted the separate examination of sentence comprehension processes and subsequent sentence memory processes. The similarity between the results of comprehension and recall was discussed in terms of a retrieval process that may be similar in both tasks. (Author/RM)

Argues that the mystery surrounding comprehension development can be dispelled by an understanding of schema theory and linguistic theory and especially by an understanding of W. Kintsch's model of comprehension, which draws from those bodies of theory. Describes teaching methods based upon Kintsch's model. (FL)

This paper explores the problem of reconciling general psychological processing constraints with linguistic constraints on discourse structure. Two types of psychological constraints, the 'immediacy constraint' and the 'limited focusing constraint' are shown to combine with linguistic constraints to determine the pattern of eye movements during…

Understanding about how students make sense of foreign language texts, based on relevant research and theory, can contribute to effective foreign language reading instruction. Both linguistic factors in the target language and native language reading skill development are critical to success in foreign language reading. Linguistic factors…

A study was made to assess the effect of comprehension on the recognition of meaning and wording changes with concrete and abstract sentences. The results of the experiment were discussed in light of recent models which propose different storage mechanisms for concrete and abstract sentences. (Author/RM)

While stimulus-response theories of learning maintain the reality and importance of the stimulus outside the perception of the person, a cognitive-field learning theory insists that, in order to make meaning, a person must perceive and react with the stimulus. Holding to this or any learning model has implications for the following: a definition…

Text analysis systems, imposing coherence measures derived from the reader's and writer's notions of how a text functions in communication, produce descriptions of texture, or the totality of cohesive ties in a text. The question is if cohesion analysis, more than offering a linguistic description of text, can serve as a psychological model of…

Investigates the relationship between focusing and coherence relations in pronoun comprehension. Examines a function of connectives: that of signaling coherence relations between two clauses. In three studies, coherence relations between sentence fragments ending in pronouns and participants' continuations to the fragments were identified.…

This paper investigates the ways readers use two semantic tools, synonymy and entailment, when responding to reading-comprehension questions. After a brief overview of semantic theory, two reading passages and their attendant multiple-choice questions are analyzed, demonstrating how readers might choose the correct answer by analyzing the way it…

Argues that the paragraph represents a semantic unit, not just a grammatical convention. Presents original research to establish the types and frequencies of certain paragraph formats found in expository material. Discusses the most appropriate time for teaching students the ideational relationships within paragraphs. (FL)

Discusses a preliminary and sketchy hypothesis of second language comprehension based on empirical investigations into strategies and processes specific to second language comprehension. (Author/CB)