Following up on an earlier positron emission tomography (PET) experiment (Indefrey et al., 2001), we used a scene description paradigm to investigate whether a posterior inferior frontal region subserving syntactic encoding for speaking is also involved in syntactic parsing during listening. In the language production part of the experiment,…

In this paper, we distinguish between two ways that an individual can construct a formal proof. We define a syntactic proof production to occur when the prover draws inferences by manipulating symbolic formulae in a logically permissible way. We define a semantic proof production to occur when the prover uses instantiations of mathematical…

This paper describes a developmental psychological approach to understanding giftedness. A theoretical model of exceptional expertise is used to frame our understanding of how gifted children's conceptual knowledge develops in a variety of domains and how the interplay of this conceptual knowledge with domain-specific skills results in rich,…

There is a paucity of Vygotskian influenced inner speech research in relation to the reading process. Those few studies which have examined Vygotskian inner speech from a reading perspective tend to support the notion that inner speech is an important covert function that is crucial to the reading process and to reading acquisition in general.…

The perceived crisis in reading achievement may be misplaced--the real crisis may be what is ignored in the curriculum. People are alarmed at the lack of emphasis being placed on teaching content knowledge in many of today's classrooms. They laugh when Jay Leno takes to the street, interviewing teenagers and young adults who do not have the…

Dawnene D. Hassett and Melissa B. Schieble contend that literacy instruction must include attention to the multiple ways in which print and visual images work together. They propose ways to update accepted reading strategies "with visual texts and new literacies in mind." Using examples from picture books and graphic novels, they expand our…

A detailed analysis of nouns derived from Noun + Noun structures in the African language Yoruba is presented. These nouns are categorized into two types: compound and phrasal nouns. Assuming some of the basic principles of lexical phonology, it is argued that compound nouns should be derived in the lexicon, while phrasal nouns are derived in the…

Although sentence combining practice has been shown to be an effective instructional technique for improving students' writing, scant attention has been paid to the appropriate sequence for such instruction. Studies of the natural development of oral and written language point out two general trends that should be considered in sequencing sentence…

Commissioner P. P. Claxton issued a questionnaire to 2,500 teachers, selected through the administrative officers of large city systems asking for the games and exercises which the teachers used in correcting the classes of errors which are given as chapter headers in this bulletin. Detailed responses were received from some 500 teachers. The…

Six brief articles discuss these aspects of language instruction: contrasting the imperative "let" with other imperative forms; distinguishing between perfect and nonperfect tenses in English; the various functions a question can perform; use of humor to illustrate language quirks; learning appropriate uses of count versus noncount nouns; and…

Discusses replacing foreign language study for students who are not highly motivated second language learners with a linguistics-based course on language awareness. Gives ideas for exercises on language and dialect differences and suggests that the course would also be a good accompaniment for more advanced foreign language classes. (EKN)

Originally part of a symposium on educational media for the deaf, the paper discusses the Multi Level Captioning Project, which has established guidelines for captioning at three reading levels by controlling vocabulary, syntax, and inferential content. Approaches to captioning describing the specific guidelines for controlling each of the…

Demonstrates the similarities between English and Farsi with respect to discourse-functional constraints on inversion. It is argued that this phenomenon is significant because these two languages exhibit different canonical word order and thus expectations can be raised from some functional-syntactic universals. (15 references) (Author/CK)

Didascalia, a Belgian research group, has developed Verbochip, a computer program dealing with the formation and contextual uses of English tenses, based on the principle of external versatility. The content base includes various fields with information that allows the content to be implemented in a selection system that fits the user's own…

Introduces characteristics of the sublanguage found in diagnostic messages about automotive equipment failures and discusses a system for minimizing jargon. Proposes using general knowledge sources and evaluates levels of communication accuracy, robustness and efficiency. (AEF)