Reviews discourse analytic and text comprehension studies for their contributions to a cognitive process view of writing, then reports on a study that combines discourse analysis with online pause data to determine how semantic propositions reflect sentence-level planning patterns. (FL)

This study assessed the impact of the frequency of elaborations on the text processing performance of dyads and individuals using technical text. Cooperative interaction and multiple elaboration activity led to better performance when descriptive information was being learned but not when procedural information was being learned. (Author/BS)

Presents and assesses recent studies on the silent period, that is, the period at the beginning of second language instruction when language learners do not speak the target language. Describes a survey of the silent period of primary school children and its consequences for acquisition theory and for language teaching. (SED)

The study reported here assessed the contribution of short-term memory to differences in standardized listening scores for each of five types of auditory input. Memory for syntactically arranged words proved to be the best predictor of listening skill in this battery of tests. (SED)

Discusses contemporary theory on the comprehension process in first language reading research and psychology. Examines beliefs, materials, and classroom behaviors which have been under recent discussion and applies the theory of comprehension--that comprehension is the process of relating incoming or new information to information already stored…

Failure to comprehend spoken language usually results from lack of knowledge on the part of the listener or poor communication skills on the part of the speaker. When diagnosing possible causes of poor listening comprehension, the teacher must reflect on these factors and analyze the classroom situation. (DF)

Reports three studies which explored relationships between prototypicality and sentence structure in recall, preference ratings, and natural dictionary definitions. The results can be explained in terms of the sensitivity of sentence production processes to the lexical or conceptual accessibility of prototypes. (Author/AMH)

Discusses how and when the written word should be introduced in second language teaching and how interference between spelling and pronunciation can be avoided. Describes a technique for presenting the printed text simultaneously with the oral utterance. Notes that students are aware that the text is a source of interference. (SED)

Describes the results of two studies indicating that people do not ordinarily process the complete literal or compositional interpretations of idiomatic expressions, and that people are automatically biased toward interpreting such language as idioms before deriving their intended literal meanings. (HTH)

Recounts observations of a bartender working in a lounge patronized during a rhetoric conference and notes that the composing processes the bartender exhibited are similar to those needed by writing students. (DF)

Discusses the production paradigm which views human cognition as a flexible system that continuously adapts to new situations and tasks in order to behave efficiently. Discusses the second language learning (English) of a German university student who had studied English for nine years, followed by a three-month stay in the U.S. (SED)

Two studies evaluated the interhemispheric transmission deficit explanation of reading disability by comparing second- and sixth-grade normal and poor readers on learning and discrimination tasks involving hemispheric presentations of visual stimuli. Results suggested verbal processing rather than interhemispheric transmission as a cause of group…

Good readers performed better than poor readers on temporal order retention tests as expected, but contrary to expectation, also maintained their superiority on the spatial tasks. However, error pattern differences supported earlier evidence linking poor readers' short-term memory deficiencies to reduced effectiveness of phonetic representation.…

Considers the acquisition of native language and foreign language as complementary aspects of one basic cognitive-affective schema, interacting and conflicting with each other in a variety of ways. In addition, an illumination of the psychological processes impinging on one can shed light, in a reciprocal way, on the other. (SL)

Examines the role of suprasegmental phonology in speech processing and its implications for reading instruction; also reviews evidence for the hypothesis that prosodic features cue the boundaries of perceptually functional units in spoken sentences, thus assisting the listener in the segmentation of verbal information. (FL)