Investigates young children's understanding of homophones in two different linguistic contexts. Results show that the linguistic context is an important factor in young children's understanding of word meaning. (six references) (GLR)

Investigates the effect of presentation context, taxonomy, and age of child on mothers' choices of category names in object-naming tasks. Contextual factors had a primary role in determining mothers' selections of category names, and the three independent variables had a complex and dynamic effect on mothers' naming practices. (Author/CI)

Various theories of learning for the categories "count noun" and "mass noun" are compared. It is argued that children assign words to these categories on the basis of intuitions arising from perception that are relevant to Macnamara's (1986) definitions of the categories. (39 references) (GLR)

Most second language texts not only do not emphasize negotiation of meaning, but are also structured to mislead learners in their attempt to express meaning (in the learners' native language). Examples from German, Spanish, and French are used to illustrate the need for second language learning to stand alone and independently from the native…

The influence of context on recognition of words (decoding) and identification of word meanings was examined by presenting 160 test words in list and narrative forms to 16 reading disabled adolescents, 16 normal adolescent readers, and 16 younger normal readers. Relationships between decoding problems and language difficulties were explored.…

Comparison of language-impaired two- to three-year-olds (N=10) and normal one-year-olds (N=15) matched for expressive language revealed that the language-impaired subjects acquired a greater number of object concepts presented in a no-action condition than the normal children, although language-impaired subjects' extensions of the names to new…

The process of acquiring word meaning from context was investigated for high- and low-ability fifth-grade children. Findings demonstrated characteristics of processing that differentiate successful and less successful acquisition and underscore the complexity of the meaning-acquisition process. (HOD)

The oral reading miscue patterns of 26 normal students in grades one, two, and three were compared with those of 26 educable mentally retarded students from primary, intermediate, and junior high school classes. Intelligence quotients ranged from 94 to 137 for the normal students and from 50 to 80 for the retarded students. During the testing…