Proposes an alternative model of language comprehension regarding how people understand idioms in which literal meanings are systematically used to constrain the use and variation of conventional idioms and to generate novel idiom variance. Presents three experiments on how people process variant idioms. (SR)

The study of schema theory as part of the inquiry into the nature of language comprehension has drawn attention to the reader's central role in the construction of text-guided meaning. Contemporary schema theory represnts a major step in the effort to move away from a reductionist view of reading comprehension. Specifically, it focuses on wbat…

Uses an analysis of children's interpretations of a complex episode of social interaction to illustrate three features that distinguish them from robot plans and that form a basis for a theory of the development of social action: human plans (1) are social, (2) operate on interpretations, and (3) are used, not just executed. (FL)

Twenty college students, ten each in the experimental and control groups, were the subjects of an experiment designed to demonstrate that integration of verb meanings occurs in connected discourse. Six paragraph-length stories, each of which included one or two critical sentences containing a general verb, were presented orally to the subjects.…

Research suggests that interaction between native speakers (NSs) and second language learners (non-native speakers) (NNSs) is characteristically different from speech between NSs, and that it is the modified nature of NS-NNS interaction which provides learners with optimal input. A study was undertaken to determine whether input and interactional…

Sacks's description-by-categorization theory was tested in a study to determine how contextual information influences the interpretation of verbal messages. The technique of enjambed conversation (a transcription of a conversation void of punctuation and speaker designation) was used to produce two verbal messages, one "more related" the…

Interactions between metaphor comprehension and level of operational thought were examined to determine what advantages individuals at the formal operational level had in natural language tasks such as the understanding of figurative language. After 30 undergraduate students were classified as either late concrete, early formal, or late formal…

The hypothesized relationship between an individual's age, educational background, and ability to understand aspects of semantic ambiguity was investigated in this study. The 90 subjects included ten students in each of grades two, four, six, eight, and ten, as well as ten college undergraduates, ten graduate students, ten high school graduates,…

A total of 224 subjects participated in a study to determine how children and adults comprehend logical connectives. Specifically, the study examined the effects of age, content, and practice on the encoding and combination of logical relationships expressed by six types of logical connectives: conjunction, disjunction, conditionality,…

This booklet contains information on the Languages of the Disciplines Project, a federally funded program that seeks to identify the problems in receptive communication encountered by beginning university students in specific disciplines and the techniques for helping these students overcome their problems. The first section of the booklet notes…

This monograph discusses the problem of the language barrier in scientific and technological development in terms of several parameters describing the flow of scientific information from one language to another. The numerical values of the language barrier parameters of the model are calculated in the field of information on second language…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 27 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) instructional strategies in teaching synonyms, antonyms, classification, paraphrasing, and locating a main idea; (2) formal aspects of metaphor; (3) linguistic…