Students learn, understand, and retain knowledge best when they discover it themselves. In the area of semantics, the study of how meaning is conveyed through language, explicit knowledge may appear to be obvious once it becomes conscious, but unless people are explicitly aware of their implicit knowledge and assumptions, they may be at their…

Readers are "dumb" because they are not privy to the mind and intentions of the writer; and the failure of the unsuccessful writer is a failure to forecast what it is going to be like to be a dumb reader of the document. Sample sentences from students' writing illustrate the following types of writing problems, which force the reader to examine…

Racist language is more pervasive than sexist language. Not only are there obvious racial slurs, but also most English black and black-oriented words have negative meanings. One study found over 134 synonyms for whiteness, 44 of which were favorable, and only 10 had any semblance of negative connotations. In the same study, 120 synonyms for…

A familiarization procedure was used in two experiments investigating word encoding in second and sixth graders. Previous studies using release from proactive inhibition had indicated that developmental changes on some encoding dimensions occur during this period. It is argued that the dependence of release from proactive inhibition on deliberate…

Two studies were conducted to find correlates of personality or cognitive style that were exemplified in differences in recall of semantic information from text. In both studies the texts were analyzed for the pattern of subordination, or hierarchy, of the semantic information that was contained in the passages using a method described by Meyer.…

Two experiments on the processing of lexical ambiguities in spoken prose were conducted using college students as subjects. The studies focused on noun-noun ambiguities, e.g. "straw" and "organ." The experiments utilized a variable stimulus onset asynchrony priming paradigm in which an auditory stimulus is followed at a…

Children's early writing is analyzed in this paper according to different perspectives such as function, grapho-phonemics, syntax, and semantics. Emphasis is given to the semantic perspective of decoding the text and to the study of coherence in text as it is viewed by the reader. Proposition analysis is used to map the coherence of samples of…

This volume contains six articles. In "Integrational Linguistics as a Basis for Contrastive Studies," Hans-Heinrich Lieb discusses the problems associated with complex contrastive analysis. Hanne Martinet's "A Functional and Contrastive Analysis of Attributive Adjectives Endings in '-ant' and in '-ende' in French and Danish,…

Swedes in four different age groups (9, 12, 15 and 18 years) judged written words which varied in three dimensions: syntactic category, objective frequency, and polysemy (multiple meaning). The subjects judged ease of comprehension of 24 words in a factorial arrangement. The method used was Thurstone's paired comparisons. A predicted complex…

Defining metaphor as "seeing a concept from one class in terms of a concept from another class," a study was devised that analyzed the degree to which two concepts occupy dissimilar positions with respect to their category or domain (within-domain distance), and the degree to which categories themselves are dissimilar (between-domain distance).…

Findings of the study described in this report indicate that the attitudes of library school students toward library automation were not changed significantly by a semester of relevant coursework. It has been hypothesized that these students would have a somewhat negative attitude toward automation, but that through relevant course instruction…

TO MEASURE THE MEANING ASSIGNED BY LOCAL SCHOOL PERSONNEL TO NEW PROGRAM PLANNING CONCEPTS IN VOCATIONAL EDUCATION, DIFFERENCES WERE DETERMINED BETWEEN (1) A NEW AND A COMPARABLE TRADITIONAL CONCEPT, (2) THE CLUSTER OF NEW CONCEPTS AND THE CLUSTER OF TRADITIONAL CONCEPTS, AND (3) THE CLUSTER OF NEW CONCEPTS AND A CLUSTER OF CONCEPTS ON…

Current research in psycholinguistics has included studies of factors influencing effective verbal communication--the effect of sequences of words and operations within an instruction; effects of instruction and self-instruction on performance; and the presentation of complex interrelated rules such as those found in legal documents, regulations,…

This chapter, to be included in "Carmichael's Manual of Child Psychology," edited by P.A. Mussen, deals with the connection between the acquisition of language and the growth of intellect, and the connection between both of these and the process of maturation. The author feels that various theories of development cannot account for the child's…

Three principles are integral to any reading theory which provides reading teachers and researchers with the linguistic explanatory power required by linguistic theory. A clear understanding of language is dependent on the knowledge of what language is and how it works. There is an important distinction between competence and performance; most…