The application of language processing skills between 2 languages with dissimilar morphosyntactic features was investigated with 72 American university students learning Japanese. Results suggest that learners' first- and second-language knowledge both play a significant role and that the linguistic knowledge and coding capability for text…

Explored the effects of differences between English-language and Chinese numerical systems for naming months and days on calendar calculations. Chinese and U.S. 8- and 10-year olds and undergraduates were asked to name a date coming before or after another given date. Found that Chinese speakers used calculations; English speakers recited names.…

Kindergarten teachers rated the progress of 303 kindergartners toward six academic objectives. Thirty-eight students who received unsatisfactory ratings were matched to 34 children with satisfactory ratings. Identified children had poorer academic achievement, phonological processes, and working memory, and more behavior problems. Follow-up at…

Reviews research into listening skills and processes, focusing on speech recognition, memory in processing, discourse comprehension, the challenge of accessing the listening process, the role of context and other factors influencing listening, and the relationship between listening and other language skills. Future directions in research are…

Notes that in linguistic theory, phenomena previously handled by a separate grammatical component have been moved into the lexicon and that in some theories, the contrast between grammar and the lexicon has vanished. Concludes that the case for a modular distinction between grammar and the lexicon has been overstated and that the evidence to date…

In response to criticism of his study of input processing and processing instruction, a relatively new concept in second language teaching, the author discusses a number of issues raised, including concepts underlying input processing, methodological concerns, instructional materials used in the study, the concept "traditional instruction," use of…

Four Japanese university professors were interviewed on their strategies for writing a research paper in English as a Foreign Language (EFL). Results indicate that these writers use strategies similar to those used by skilled native English writers and proficient writers of English as a Second Language. (35 references) (Author/CK)

A study analyzed the communicative dynamics occurring during explicit instruction of a grammatical concept (concerning French verbs) taught within the students' Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). Analysis focused on discourse strategies used at four levels of the ZPD. (Contains 48 references.) (Author/MSE)

Discusses several philosophies of linguistics and semiotics that debate the importance of words and their relationship to signs, language as the primary modeling system, and the historical primacy of verbal versus visual communication. Describes human communication as both language-based and nonverbal, both aspects inviting arbitrary and abstract…

Visual and auditory processing of complex sentences was examined among 8- through 11-year-olds. Findings suggested a U-shaped learning pattern for on-line processing of restrictive relative clauses. Off-line accuracy scores showed different patterns for good and poor comprehenders. Incorrect local attachment strategy use was related to sentence…

Root word vocabulary was studied in two normative samples (English-speaking, wide socioeconomic range) and in an advantaged sample. Findings suggest that greater efforts should be made to foster vocabulary acquisition in the primary years, and that a rough vocabulary curriculum sequence can be identified for the elementary years. (Author)

Focuses on natural language processing (NLP) in information retrieval. Defines the seven levels at which people extract meaning from text/spoken language. Discusses the stages of information processing; how an information retrieval system works; advantages to adding full NLP to information retrieval systems; and common problems with information…

Examined to what extent readers' word-treatment strategies are task dependent, and to what extent word-treatment strategies are dependent on the reader's reading profile. Subjects were 42 students of English for academic purposes advanced reading-comprehension course. Instruments used in the study included a word-treatment experiment, an open…

Whereas existing learning environments on the Web lack high level interactivity, we have developed a human tutor-like tutorial conversation system for the Web that enhances educational courseware through mixed-initiative dialog with natural language processing. The conversational tutoring agent is composed of an animated tutor, a Latent Semantic…

The syntagmatic paradigmatic model is a distributed, memory-based account of verbal processing. Built on a Bayesian interpretation of string edit theory, it characterizes the control of verbal cognition as the retrieval of sets of syntagmatic and paradigmatic constraints from sequential and relational long-term memory and the resolution of these…