This study demonstrated a reliable method of determining the attributes of prose materials on an imagery-concreteness scale, and evaluated the effects of an advance organizer and a learning passage on learning and retention when the attributes of these passages are defined on a concrete-imagery continuum. (Author/PN)

Provides direct evidence of developmental differences in the processing of item-specific information, discussing how these differences affect recognition as well as recall performance in second graders, fifth graders, and college adults. Results suggest that retention varies as a result of the degree to which children differ from adults in…

In order to determine (1) the major speech characteristics of mothers and fathers and (2) the relationship between parental input and child language development, a longitudinal analysis of parents' input language was conducted during the period in which four first-born children progressed from no words to the stable use of one-word utterances in…

Examines the extent to which the structure of simple conversations influences the subsequent memorability of dialogues. (FL)

Manipulated speaker sex and "sick" jokes/no-jokes in printed speeches are evaluated by college students. "Sick" jokes generally resulted in negative evaluations of both speech and speaker; "sick" jokes may be enjoyed in certain social situations but should probably be left out of formal speeches. (PD)

Data indicate that speakers with relatively high ethos (college professors) can raise their ratings on wittiness/funniness and sense of humor--without damaging their credibility--by making fun of their professional fields, provided they do not at the same time humorously disparage the values of the audience. (PD)

Kindergarteners without number conservation ability were found to rely on the nonlinguistic strategy of choosing the greater amount in tasks requiring the choice of more and less. Mature semantic knowledge of "more" was found to precede that of "less." (Author)

Describes a learning game developed to simulate verbal communication. Focuses on words and meanings and has applications to semantics, interpersonal communication, listening, nonverbal communication, and creativity in general. (PD)

Two experiments indicated that sentence verification times were significantly longer when a discrepancy between target sentence and context was in the syntactic presupposition, rather than in the assertion. Findings are best explained by a structural hypothesis, not by strategies designed to locate given and new information. (Author/CP)

Matched pairs of skilled and less skilled readers read aloud material in cloze procedure format and printed in geometric transformations. Skilled readers made greater use of grammatical and contextual information. The stability of differences suggests that differential utilization of syntactic and semantic cues contributes to differences in…

Expounds Firth's views on the problems of translation and surveys theories of translation by some Firthian linguists. Defines the concept of meaning and the concept of varieties within a language, discussing various dialect categories and other categories that relate to constant features of speakers' and writers' use. (MES)

Describes two experiments on the processing of ambiguous words: one involving lexical decisions for words related to dominant or subordinate meanings of homograph primes, the other involving ambiguous words ending sentences that bias the homographs at varying degrees. Concludes that dominance and context contribute independently to processing of…

Graduate students rated their self-perception of three personal traits and evaluated the concepts of drug addict and alcoholics. The results were correlated to the semantics of drug addicts and alcoholics, and show a positive relationship between self-perception and the semantics of drug addicts and alcoholic concepts. (Author)

Three experiments examined what happens to reaction time to verify easy items when they are mixed with difficult items in a verification task. Subjects verification of simple arithmetic equations and sentences took longer when placed in a difficult list. Difficult sentences also slowed the verification of easy arithmetic equations. (Author/RD)

This study compared the abilities of 30 sixth-grade, competent readers and 30 adult, competent readers to process syntactic structures under conditions of related and unrelated discourse. Results suggest the ability to process syntactic and semantic elements is not fully developed in children in the 11- to 12-year range. (Author/SJL)