The objective of this thesis was to colligate the various strands of research in the literature of computational linguistics that have to do with the computational treatment of semantic content so as to encode it into a computerized dictionary. In chapter 1 the course of mechanical translation (1947-1960) and quantitative linguistics is traced to…

Presents the opposing viewpoints on grammar study, phonics and whole language instruction, and the role of information in English language arts. (SRT)

This issue contains the following articles: "Was Mir Wisse: A Review of the Literature on the Languages of the Pennsylvania Germans" (David Bowie); "Tigrinya Root Consonants and the OCP" (Eugene Buckley); "Duration of Onset Consonants in Gay Male Stereotyped Speech" (Sean Crist); "PRO, the EPP and Nominative…

An analysis of the writing process is followed by a description of programs used in a computer-based creative writing scheme developed at Edinburgh University. An account of a project to study the program's effect on the creative writings of 11 year old pupils concludes the article. (EAO)

Discusses the recommendations made by compositionists from 1950 to 1980 to apply the findings of linguists to composition instruction. Argues that the noncontextual orientation of modern linguistics renders it insufficient as a comprehensive source of theoretical or practical assistance in composition instruction. (MG)

Examines the emergence of the present perfect in the interlanguage of adult learners of English as a Second Language (ESL). Part of a growing body of research on the acquisition of temporal expression by learners of a variety of second languages, this study explores a tense/aspect form acquired late in first language acquisition. (Author/VWL)

The authors assessed the extent to which a generative prereading activity known as Story Impressions (SI), or composing a guess from clues, influences passage recall relative to a more passive prereading activity of reading a Content Preview (CP). The results from 74 eighth-grade students indicated the CP groups equaled the reading-only control…

This paper presents the findings of an experiment in which 20 Greek Deaf students produced written texts under two different conditions of language input: (1) a translation from a videotaped story in Greek sign language, and (2) a direct composition produced from a picture story--a neutral non-linguistic input. Placing Deaf writing within a…

The present study had two major goals. The first goal was to assess the relative difficulty among different versions of the unexpected contents task by systematically varying the dimensions of grammatical mood (indicative vs. subjunctive) and person (self vs. other), and to examine the correlational pattern between these different versions of the…

Purpose: Children with specific language impairment (SLI) lag behind children with typical language (TL) in their grammatical development, despite equivalent early exposure to recasts in conversation (M. E. Fey, T. E. Krulik, D. F. Loeb, & K. Proctor-Williams, 1999) and the ability to learn from recasts in intervention as quickly as do children…

This article presents findings from a year-long study of how intermediate second language (L2) learners of German (English first language) used case markings, word order, and semantic information when comprehending individual German sentences. The results showed that the learners relied on word order and semantic information, but did not…

As a professor of English at Diablo Valley College in northern California where she teaches a variety of writing and literature courses, the author finds her students' essays so often lack not only shape and drama, but the ring of emotional truth as well. Their "life" stories are lifeless and their "true" stories sound somehow…

English as a second language (ESL) students pose a challenge in the classroom because teachers' assumptions about the languages and cultural information in students' heads may be wrong. Students' assumptions about teachers, courses, and subjects may likewise be faulty. In this article, the authors offer teaching tips and assignment ideas for ESL…

In this study, supplemental writing instruction in planning and revising was used to improve the stories written by young writers with learning disabilities (LD) and poor writing skills. Six second-grade students practiced a strategy for planning and writing stories using the Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) approach and then revised…

This study investigated the relationship between components of working memory (WM) and the macrostructure (e.g., planning, writing, and revision) and microstructure (e.g., grammar, punctuation) of writing. A battery of WM and writing measures were administered to 160 high-school students. Overall, hierarchical regression analyses showed that the…