Two experiments investigated the focusing properties of thematic roles, and a third examined the view that thematic role preferences reflect a focusing on the consequences of the represented event. Results focus on the structure of represented events, top-down and bottom-up processes, thematic hierarchies and pronoun comprehension. (35 references)…

Argues that the syntactic and mental model accounts of the suppression effect in deductive reasoning are inadequate. Proposes a relative salience model. Describes a test of predictions from this model in a suppression model, which obtained evidence of convergent validity for the salience construct. Results could not be reconciled with either the…

Examined the relation between phonological memory and foreign language learning by analyzing the correlations between pseudoword repetition performance and English test performance among 41 Finnish primary school pupils. Results found significant correlations between pseudoword repetition and foreign language learning. (18 references) (MDM)

Presents a review of cognitive psychology research dealing with the organization and functioning of oral and written language production mechanisms. Discusses works dealing with the microstructural aspects of language, primarily oral production. Describes how the research perspective has evolved from modular to connectionist models. Examines the…

Responses of native and nonnative English speaking undergraduates regarding the grammaticality of sentences with varying object and subject structures demonstrated that native speakers exhibited a processing preference, as did nonnatives whose native language grammar did not bias them toward another certain structure. (19 references) (Author/CB)

Examined whether superior mathematics performance of students from Japan, Korea, and China may be due, in part, to differences in cognitive representation of number affected by Asian language features. Results suggested that the unique characteristics of the Asian number language system may facilitate the teaching and learning of mathematics,…

ALICE, a multimedia framework for intelligent computer-assisted language instruction (ICALI) at Carnegie Mellon University (PA), consists of a set of tools for building a number of different types of ICALI programs in any language. Its Natural Language Processing tools for syntactic error detection, morphological analysis, and generation of…

In two experiments, mothers told their infant and an adult a story that involved target words, and women taught an assembly procedure involving novel terminology to another adult. In speech to infants, mothers positioned focused words on pitch peaks, but in speech to adults, the emphasis was more variable. (BC)

Investigated a model of metalinguistic awareness, which consists of two components (the control of linguistic processing and the analysis of linguistic knowledge), in children between the ages of five and seven years. Each of the two components was assessed by four metalinguistic tasks. (Contains 35 references.) (JL)

Phonetic skills and vocabulary size were investigated in 37 toddlers identified with specific expressive language impairment and 20 comparison toddlers. Results indicate significant differences in numbers of consonant types and tokens, although the most frequently present consonants were consistent across groups. No predictive relationship emerged…

Explores the indirect method of locating for indexing the likely explicit and implicit captions of photographs, using multimodal clues including the specific words used, syntax, surrounding layout of the Web page, and general appearance of the associated image. The MARIE-3 system thus avoids full image processing and full natural-language…

A study examined central auditory processing ability of 15 children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), 15 children with ADHD and learning disabilities (LD), and 15 controls. Results indicated lower central-auditory-processing ability and significant correlations between reading and ADHD and reading and…

Examines theoretical foundations and practical application of Translation Quality Assessment (TQA), particularly in translator training. Several approaches to translation are considered, especially the "functional" and "relevance" approaches. The need for TQA, several popular views on translation quality, and the issue of…

Analyzes the production and perception of illocutionary forms. Using a semantic neutralization procedure, the performance of children (5, 7, and 9 years old) and adults was compared in two experiments focusing on prosodic representations in production and perception tasks. (Author/JL)

Current research supporting the language basis of dyslexia is reviewed, suggesting that phonological processing deficits are at the core of dyslexia and less pronounced reading problems. The role of higher-level language functioning and phonological processing is considered in an expanded view of the language basis of reading disabilities.…