This study investigates ESL learners' semantic awareness of English words by attempting to estimate a threshold beyond which ESL learners can be said to have reached native-like semantic knowledge. The "Vocabulary Levels Test," originally designed by Nation (1990) and later revised and expanded by Schmitt (2000), was used to operationalise this…

This research examined the effectiveness of three different learning strategies on Korean EFL students' vocabulary comprehension and retention: context, semantic mapping, and word lists. 116 college freshmen were placed into one of the three treatments of vocabulary instruction. Subjects were tested on varying levels of vocabulary knowledge using…

In researching the potential of cognitive diagnostic assessment, researchers concur that the quality of diagnostic inferences is subject to the extent to which the construct representations based on cognitive skills are theoretically compelling, empirically sound, and relevant to test use. In this paper, I argue that the construction of a Q matrix…

Lexical-semantic access and retrieval was examined in 15 adults diagnosed with schizophrenia and matched controls. This study extends the literature through the inclusion of multiple examinations of lexical-semantic production within the same patient group and through correlating performance on these tasks with various positive and negative…

People can intuitively detect whether a word triad has a common remote associate (coherent) or does not have one (incoherent) before and independently of actually retrieving the common associate. The authors argue that semantic coherence increases the processing fluency for coherent triads and that this increased fluency triggers a brief and…

A STUDY WAS CONDUCTED TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE GENERAL CONCEPTUAL FRAME OF REFERENCE OF THE COLLEGE STUDENT WHO INTENDS TO GO INTO TEACHING, AND PARTICULARLY ABOUT HIS PERCEPTION OF EDUCATIONAL CONCEPTS. THE EXPERIMENTAL GROUP CONSISTED OF 245 STUDENTS ENROLLED IN AN INTRODUCTORY COURSE IN EDUCATION. THE CONTROL GROUP CONSISTED OF 68 STUDENT…

This study examined similarities and differences in the affective meaning of emotions and sentiments, using Osgood's data for American, German, Iranian, Japanese, and Mexican language communities. Analyses indicated that the cultures differed significantly in 30% of their judgments; the fewest divergences were for the most important dimension…

Examines the effects of different-intensity unconditioned stimuli as well as generalization to related and unrelated test words. Its results indicate that semantic generalization is not a consequence of mediated generalization as traditionally conceived. (Editor/RK)

A study showing that lexically equivalent words in two languages have different affective meanings, that affective intensity of dominant language words is greater than for second language equivalents, and that the difference is greatest for words with high affective meaning demonstrates that affective meaning is an important component of…

Demonstrates that both scale-checking style and concept-scale interaction are crucial variables in research using the semantic differential method to assess semantic development. Eight children from each of grades K-5 and 16 adults (aged 17.5-68 years) served as subjects. (MP)

Causal statements from adults with learning disabilities and normally achieving adults were analyzed and organized within a linguistic taxonomy of causal semantic relations, and a relationship between Piagetian cognitive stages and verbal expressions of causality were identified. Piagetian principles were used to design assessment and intervention…

General practitioners (GPs) need advanced skills in geriatric assessment to be competent to treat the increasing number of elderly patients. Continuing medical education in geriatrics for GPs is heterogeneous, and not assessed for effectiveness. In this study we compared the educational effects of three geriatric post-graduate training methods on…

Argues that concentrating upon the intent of a speaker is more important than upon the precision with which prescribed terminology is utilized. (JK)

Outlines a mode of speech that practices simplification of language through the use of short words. (MD)

Syntactic attempts to account for preferred adjective order are rejected in favor of hypotheses integrating semantic and syntactic aspects of the phenomenon in a psycholinguistic framework. (Author/FWB)