Two divergent views of linguistic ability in adulthood currently exist. One view maintains that verbal ability is preserved in old age, while the other view maintains that verbal ability declines, especially comprehension. To analyze the effects of semantic priming during sentence processing by 30 younger adults (mean age, 25 years) and 30 older…

Contradictory previous research results showing that (1) language knowledge does not decrease with age; and (2) age differences exist in semantic strategies for memory recall provide the impetus for a study of semantic priming in young adults (mean age = 20) and older adults (mean age = 70) by providing target and prime words with six different…

Three aspects of language behavior--linguistic independence, linguistic interference, and code-switching, are an integral part of the language processing experiences of the bilingual person. Complex cerebral mechanisms function in a coordinated effort to analyze and synthesize the various components of linguistic codes, store them in semantic…

Semantic theory, its relationship to comprehension, the nature and function of semantic memory, and results of some research on semantic memory and bilinguals are discussed through a review of recent literature. The findings discussed seem to confirm these general observations regarding semantic memory and bilinguals: (1) there is integration and…

Analysis of the role of paraphrase in the cohesion of everyday oral discourse suggests that combining two methodological approaches to discourse analysis, using distribution of specific discourse elements and sequential relationships within discourse, creates a more empirical foundation for analysis, leading to a more accurate formulation of the…

A study compares and contrasts a set of English and Spanish prepositions of location in the context of prototype theory. It seeks to establish the prototype concept of each preposition and the degrees of prototypicality by testing for native-speaker choices of examples that illustrate best the most basic use of the preposition. The prepositions…

An assignment given to students at the end of an advanced composition class empowers students by helping them grasp principles and develop abilities that allow them to get beyond needing teachers. The crux of the assignment is a heuristic for analyzing any particular type of writing for the purpose of learning to produce it. The students are…

A study examined how preschool children use information about linguistic contrast in learning new words. The 72 subjects were assigned to four groups to play a game. They were asked to get an unfamiliar item, one of nine swatches of different colors, shapes, and materials. In the first group, the children were told only one label (color, shape, or…

A study examined how global coherence in story comprehension develops in children through causal inference. Stories of contrasting structure were analyzed by a causal network model. Evidence of parallels between the construction of coherent representations and the development of the story understanding is presented. Data show that children…

Most linguists assume that bound anaphors such as "himself" are connected with their antecedents in a different way from free anaphors such as "him." Bound anaphora resolution is deterministic, based on Principle A of Chomsky's binding theory. Free anaphors, pronominals, cannot be bound in the domain of reflexives (principle…

In the controversy over the conceptualization of language and verbal behavior there is an underlying unity of goals and concepts, characterized in the teaching and learning of the first language as acquisition or transmission of skills. Both the behaviorist and cognitive perspectives of learning accommodate this point of view conceptually, if not…

A study investigated children's ability to distinguish among literal, metaphorical, and anomalous comparisons. The 100 subjects, equal numbers of three-, four-, five-, and six-year-old children and college students, completed similarity statements by choosing one of two words from (1) a metaphorical/literal word pair, (2) a literal/anomalous word…

The acquisition of several word formation devices in American Sign Language (ASL) by deaf children learning ASL as a native language focused on some devices analogous to word formation devices in spoken languages (compounding, affixation, and derivation) and some in ASL that may not have counterparts in spoken languages. They were examined using…

A study of the development of abstract noun definitions in children and adolescents had as its subjects 120 students evenly divided into age groups of 10-, 14-, and 18-year-olds, randomly selected from students scoring in the 40th to 88th percentiles on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills (for 10-year-olds) and the Tests of Achievement and Proficiency…

This paper analyzes fictive motion expressions in English and Spanish with the twofold aim of (a) finding out whether the differences that have been reported in the expression of motion in English and Spanish also apply to fictive motion, and (b) checking whether the similarities and differences reported by Matsumoto for English and Japanese also…