This paper investigates the ways readers use two semantic tools, synonymy and entailment, when responding to reading-comprehension questions. After a brief overview of semantic theory, two reading passages and their attendant multiple-choice questions are analyzed, demonstrating how readers might choose the correct answer by analyzing the way it…

This paper is an abstract of the original manuscript, by Nancy Boulton, which examines the area of intersection between purely linguistic and social behavior to see if the latter is amenable to formal description. The paper examines psychoanalytic discourse and presents evidence for the following hypotheses: (1) since participants can recognize…

Language has the power to structure and change thought and behavior, where there exists a belief in this positive power of language. Magic is curative because the language of magic has a powerful suggestive effect on the human mind familiar with the context in which this language is used. In psychotherapy, the special terminology is a vital part…

The nature of linguistic variation is examined, particularly the ways in which phonology, morphology, syntax, and other aspects of language vary according to social and situational contexts. A distinction must be made between a difference in frequency of a linguistic variable that carries meaning, and a difference in frequency which carries no…

Some aspects of a general systems theory of second language acquisition are as follows: the system is greater than the sum of its parts; each component has a distinctive role in the overall operation of the system; some components may be entire systems themselves; the workings of the system proceed according to patterns, and rules for any given…

This paper examines how tagmemics can be equipped with a notational mechanism to account for significant variability phenomena in language. A brief history of variation theory is followed by a proposal for a tentative notational system for marking variants. An illustration of this system is provided through application to various levels of…

The linguistic literature contains many studies of the structure of the noun phrase. Syntactic structures that occupy NP position but which don't have the internal characteristics of a substantive (infinitives and THAT clauses, for example) are distinguished from lexical structures that occupy NP position and do have the internal characteristics…

The purpose of this study was to investigate differences among four oral language elicitation probes used to collect language samples from young children. Ten kindergarten, ten first-grade, and ten second-grade children provided the oral language samples. Each class was divided by sex, and five boys and five girls from each grade were randomly…

This project was designed to develop machine-searchable files of linguistic data to be interrogated by researchers looking for patterns, examples, and other kinds of evidence bearing on language universals. This preliminary report of the project focuses on a detailed description of the computer program system used, MARC (Machine-Readable Catalog),…

Spanish and English versions of a 38-item grammar test were administered to 40 Spanish-surnamed pupils equally divided by sex at grade levels K, 1, 3, and 5 (10 subjects per grade) in a bilingual education program. The test was a revision of part of an earlier test for oral proficiency in Spanish and English. The reliability of the new test was…

This verb dictionary is divided into two main sections. The English-Tlingit section is organized by means of English headings or key words, followed by English meanings which convey the main sense of the Tlingit verb expression in question. A representation of the given Tlingit verb expression is provided, along with one or more examples of it in…

Two crucial factors in teaching spelling are the teacher's understanding of the material to be learned and the teacher's understanding of the nature of the learner. Psycholinguistics is relevant to both the material and the learner. In teaching spelling, it is possible to draw insights from behavioral and cognitive psychology as well as from Noam…

This study attempted to assess the linguistic competence of black lower-class speakers within each of two language systems: standard English and Black English. The subjects were 72 black kindergarten, third-, and sixth-graders in a predominantly black community in Toledo, Ohio. All children attending the school were considered lower-class, since…

Reviewed are three types of etiological theories of dyslexia: theories of visual perceptual deficit, theories of difficulties with sensory integration, and theories of verbal deficiencies. The author concludes that recent findings weigh heavily against perceptual deficit theories of reading disability as suggested by S. Orton and others; that the…

This 24-item annotated bibliography is intended to facilitate introduction to the field of sign language studies. It lists selected published works in English in which sign language is viewed from several different aspects, including: theoretical studies (nos. 1, 5, 6, 19, 20 and 21); works relating Sign to other visual communication systems (nos.…