The study compares three synonymous nouns, "disadvantage," "downside," and "drawback," in terms of their frequency, distribution patterns, and collocations, using data from the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). The findings show that the frequency of "disadvantage" is the highest, followed by…

For English language learners, mastering the use of near-synonyms can be challenging. Despite the semantic similarities of English synonyms, they are not interchangeable in all contexts. The objectives of this corpus-based study are to examine differences between the near-synonymous adjectives "blank," "empty" and…

Semantic diversity quantifies the similarity in the content of contexts a word has been experienced in. Four experiments investigated its effect on lexical and semantic judgments in 9- to 10-year-olds and adults. In Experiment 1, a cross-modal semantic judgment task, participants decided whether a visually presented word matched an audio…

Semantic ambiguity has been shown to slow comprehension, although it is unclear whether this ambiguity disadvantage is attributable to competition in semantic activation or difficulties in response selection. We tested the two accounts by examining semantic relatedness decisions to homonyms, or words with multiple unrelated meanings (e.g.,…

English phrasal verbs (PVs) are ubiquitous and often polysemous. These lexical items are thus very important, but also challenging for ESL/EFL learners. Substantial research that can inform instructional approaches to PVs has already been conducted. One strand of this research has focused on identifying PVs that merit prioritization in learning.…

The article presents the procedure and results of a linguistic experimental study of the cognitive characteristics underlying basic ideas about patriotism in the modern Russian language consciousness as identified by the author from previous studies of the semantic content of the concept of PATRIOTISM in accordance with language data. The purpose…

Purpose: In this study, the authors investigated potential explanations for sparse lexical-semantic representations in children with specific language impairment (SLI) and typically developing peers. The role of auditory perception, phonological working memory, and lexical competition were investigated. Method: Participants included 32 children…

It is doubtful whether an exhaustive dictionary of any language can be prepared but such completeness should be aimed for. The criteria used by the 'Worterbuch der deutschen Gegenwartssprache" for leaving out certain words are discussed. About 75 German words, starting with the letter p, not found in this dictionary are listed with their…

This article discusses various approaches to vocabulary selection for second language teaching. The criteria of availability, familiarity, coverage, and meaning are suggested as important in vocabulary selection. (AM)

The present investigation is a study of the definitional style of nouns and verbs in typically developing school-age children. A total of 30 children in upper-elementary grades provided verbal definitions for 10 common high-frequency nouns (e.g., apple, boat, baby) and 10 common high- frequency verbs (e.g., climb, sing, throw). All definitions…

The present investigation is a study of the development of adjective definitions given by participants in Grades 6 and 10 and by young adults, as well as the influence of word frequency on those definitions. A total of 150 participants (50 per age group) wrote definitions for 6 high-frequency and 6 low-frequency adjectives. Adjective definitions…