This paper focuses on the relation between two areas of research which owe a great debt to the work of Giyoo Hatano: the ways in which the use of the abacus mediates arithmetic problem solving and the way in which the use of the kanji writing system mediates the interpretation of unfamiliar words. These examples are related to L. S. Vygotsky's…

The present article offers comments on the infusion of methodologies, approaches, reasoning strategies, and findings from the fields of genetics and genomics into studies of complex human behaviors (hereafter, complex phenotypes). Specifically, I discuss issues of generality and specificity, causality, and replicability as they pertain to…

This article investigates lexical gender in specialized communication. The key method of analysis is that of forms of address, professional titles, and "generic man" in a 10 million word corpus of written Business English. After a brief introduction and literature review on both gender in specialized communication and similar corpus-based views of…

It is believed that language is an innate ability and, therefore, spoken language is acquired naturally and informally. In contrast, written language is thought to be an invention and, therefore, has to be learned through formal instruction. An alternate view, however, is that spoken language and written language are two forms of manifestations of…

From an epistemological perspective, Wilhelm von Humboldt's studies on the Oriental and East Asian languages and writing systems (Egyptian hieroglyphs, Sanskrit, Chinese, Polynesian) raise the question of his position in the Orientalist discourse of his time. Said [Said, E.W., 1978. "Orientalism. Western Conceptions of the Orient, fourth…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of task-based writing instruction, a communicative language-teaching method, on second language acquisition and differentiation of instruction for English language learners during the independent work time instructional component of the Open Court Reading program. Through student-teacher…

This paper begins by looking at responses to Bernstein in Germany in the 1970s that criticized his notions of class difference in sociolinguistic codes. As part of a re-examination of Bernstein's ideas, the paper goes on to look at the current communicative situation in German education where urban schools have many second-generation immigrant…

It is now generally agreed that "output" functions to promote language learning through focus on form. Empirical studies reveal that oral communicative tasks can arouse learners' negotiation of meaning, but they are not so effective in bringing about focus on form. Hence, researchers have suggested using collaborative writing tasks to…

Although the main characteristics of procedural discourse are well known, less is known about its various subtypes. Most of the data for the present paper are taken from Category E (skills, trades, and hobbies) in the Brown and LOB corpora, supplemented with examples from computer manuals and a manual for drivers. Following a survey of previous…

From a definition of the terms "vowel,""consonant,""syllable," and "word," rules for the syllabification of Italian are formulated. Syllabification in musical composition is briefly mentioned. (AM)

From the sixth to the eighth century A.D., Japan was the recipient of massive cultural infusions from China. This acceptance of the Chinese pattern included, and to a great extent was based on, the acceptance of the Chinese language. The Chinese writing system was applied to Japanese because there was no other model to follow and in spite of the…

The relative merits of Chinese characters as a writing system are discussed as an introduction to the proceedings of the CLTA panel on Chinese characters. (KM)

All visual signals need to be interpreted. The educational system needs to teach students to interpret various media in addition to the printed word. (Author/STS)