This verbal memory study considers only simple sentences and examines learner performance under the two conditions of audio presentation and printed presentation. Learner performance is compared when required either to recognize sentences identical to those in the original list or, alternatively, to recognize non-identical sentences incorporating…

The final report on a project to develop a standard corpus of present-day Mandarin Chinese is presented. This corpus consists of words of running text of Chinese prose printed in the Republic of China during the calendar year 1968. The corpus, although originally planned to have a total of 500 samples of 2000 words each, has only 294 samples. Each…

This dictionary, containing 32,000 entries, has been compiled for the general use of the American student of Spanish and the Spanish-speaking student of English, with special reference in either case to New World usage as found in the United States and in Spanish America. Entries were selected according to the relative frequency of their…

To determine children's knowledge of the less frequent grammatical usages of words that may occur in more than one part of speech, lists of such words were developed. The grammatical functions of 1220 common words from two word counts were examined; about 50% were found to be grammatically ambiguous. Data were collected from about 1500 children in…

Because vocabulary control in children's reading materials is largely based on vocabulary lists and studies which are now obsolete, new areas of learning are being considered for developing beginning reading materials. Instead of basing vocabulary lists on frequency counts and adult reading materials, the three approaches examined here are…

As part of a study of the feasibility and effect of teaching Navajo children to read their own language first, preliminary data on English loan words in the speech of 6-year-old Navajos were gathered in this study of the language of over 200 children. Taped interviews with these children were analyzed, and a spoken word count of all English words…

In order to investigate whether the reading process develops similarly in languages where grapheme-phoneme relationships are more consistent, or where there is less word-order constraint, than in English, oral-reading-error analysis was extended to a language other than English. Errors evaluated were made by five Colombian second graders and six…

Linguistic, psycholinguistic, and sociolinguistic aspects of word knowledge are examined. Vocabulary techniques are discussed according to how they build up word frequency, vocabulary growth in native speakers, underlying forms, semantic structure, word association, and case relations. (SCC)

The relationship between sign language rehearsal and written free recall was examined by having deaf college students rehearse the sign language equivalents of printed English words. Studies of both immediate and delayed memory suggested that word recall increased as a function of total rehearsal frequency and frequency of appearance in rehearsal…

Describes single finger sign contact in data from ten different sign languages. The relative frequencies of signs using each of the four possible fingers are examined. Proposes distinctive features to explain the differences in frequency and use of these handshapes in sign languages in general. (Author/LMO)

Reports algorithm for calculation of term discrimination values that is sufficiently fast in operation to permit use of exact values. Evidence is presented to show that relationship between term discrimination and term frequency is crucially dependent upon type of inter-document similarity measure used for calculation of discrimination values. (13…

Uses a proofreading task to investigate whether function and content words are processed differently in a text. Concludes that misprints are hard to detect in words that retain the original shape, short words prevent detection of misprints more than long words, and that there is an interaction between word type and length. (HOD)

This working paper summarizes the results of an expert panel review of the Lexile Framework (LF). The review was conducted by five panel members through readings, the preparation of brief individual reports, and participation in a meeting held on April 26, 2001 in Washington, D.C. The list of panel members and invited observers, along with brief…

An attempt to demonstrate the erroneousness of the principle that language teaching materials must be based on a detailed analysis of various parameters of texts of the target language, such as frequency, usefulness, basicness, or productiveness of lexical or structural items. (Author/FWB)