Identified are variables affecting performance of algebraic word problems for eighth graders. An appropriate readability level would seem necessary but not sufficient for student success. The structural variables used appeared to be good predictors of both the correct strategies and solving time. (Author/YP)

Attempts to demonstrate how recipient design can structure an interaction. Choices of words and phrases, intonation, and the larger structure of the discourse itself are all made with a greater or lesser awareness of others' reactions. Evidence of how recipient design is at the service of altercasting is found in shared knowledge, agreement, and…

Examines Nickels's claim that interactive models of lexical access in speech production cannot account for naming data from a group of anomic patients. This paper reiterates that the behavior of connectionist models is not easily predictable without running the appropriate simulations, and discusses the role of frequency in lexical access in…

Develops analytical techniques to determine "borrowability," the ease with which a lexical item or category of lexical items can be borrowed by one language from another. These techniques are then applied to Spanish borrowings in Bolivian Quechua on the basis of a set of bilingual texts. (29 references) (MDM)

The relative importance of internal and external letter features of words in children's developing reading was investigated to clarify further the nature of early featural analysis. In Experiment 1, 72 6-, 8-, and 10-year-olds read aloud words displayed as wholes, external features only (central features missing, thereby preserving word shape…

Three experiments assessed the contributions of age-of-acquisition (AoA) and frequency to visual word recognition. Three databases were created from electronic journals in chemistry, psychology and geology in order to identify technical words that are extremely frequent in each discipline but acquired late in life. In Experiment 1, psychologists…

The purpose of the present study was to determine what features associated with the macrolevel of lexical competence vary as a function of an increase in second language (L2) proficiency. The macrolevel of participants' word knowledge was described with respect to six variables that are commonly associated with three proposed macrolevel…

This study set out to empirically determine the reliability and validity of the Vocabulary Levels Tests, both the passive and productive versions. Furthermore, attempt was made to investigate the nature of the students' vocabulary knowledge with regard to their passive and active knowledge of the L2 words as a whole and at different word frequency…

A study investigated the usefulness of non-native speakers' subjective, relative word frequency estimates as a measure of second language proficiency. In the experiment, two subjective frequency estimate (SFE) tasks, one on French and one on English, were presented to French learners of English (n=126) and American learners of French (n=87).…

Romanian is characterized by a richness of surface forms that are difficult to classify and even more difficult for the learner to assimilate. There is much instructional material available in Romanian, and in a survey of fifty works published outside the country, four categories emerged: teaching materials, pedagogical grammars, grammars, and…

A study examined the teaching and learning processes in the mother-child interaction that lead to the child's acquisition of the English morphemes for future and past. Data were drawn from transcripts of a mother and daughter's interaction during a period of active acquisition, age 22 to 27 months. Longitudinal microanalytic and macroanalytic…

An unusual construction in Shina grammar is examined, particularly as it has been observed in the language form spoken in the Skardu region of Pakistan. The construction occurs in the use of the dative case with certain verbs. The patterns of occurrence and the origins of this phenomenon are analyzed through examples from Shina. (MSE)

Translating legal and bureaucratic language into plain, comprehensible English is not amenable to simple rules and procedures. Rewriting comprehensibly requires specialized knowledge about language and an awareness of a number of misconceptions and pitfalls. This paper discusses what not to do in rewriting, based upon rewritten documents presently…

A study is described in this paper that was conducted to determine the frequency and percentage of words containing Latin prefixes and roots in the "Harris Jacobson Core List" (Basic Elementary Reading Vocabularies, 1972). The results of the study indicate that the percentage of words containing Latin prefixes and roots increases…

THIRD IN A SERIES OF RELATED STUDIES UNDERTAKEN TO ARRIVE AT THE CORE ELEMENTS OF SPOKEN GERMAN, THIS LIST IS BASED ON THE LATEST COMPUTER TECHNIQUES IN FREQUENCY ANALYSIS. AN INTRODUCTION EXAMINES AND REDEFINES THE CONCEPT OF IDIOMATIC PATTERNS. THE BODY OF THE TEXT LISTS, BY FREQUENCY AND RANGE, 1,100 OF THE MOST COMMON IDIOMS IN SPOKEN GERMAN.…