Assessed differences in self-perceptions, peer perceptions, and attributions of relative responsibility for aggressive and nonagressive boys. Used semantic differential ratings following brief competitive dyadic discussion, and observer ratings. Perceptual and attributional biases operated in social interactions. Unlike nonaggressive boys,…

Notes the problem in reading instruction of teaching children both one-to-one representational meaning of words and world-meaning of words, a distinction that can alter their perception of truth as found in written works. (JC)

A study of 45 hearing-impaired students (ages 10 to 19) investigated their understanding of English verb-particle combinations of varying syntactic and semantic difficulty. Results suggest an order of difficulty in learning. Idioms were found to be more difficult than literal meanings with little improvement over the age range of the subjects.…

Summarizes 10 presentations made at the workshop on a variety of topics including: classification of Chinese dialects; the importance of semantic units in tone sandhi; insights on Chinese character recognition among brain-damaged patients; and a cognitive approach to the study of Chinese grammar. (TR)

Discusses the impact of research in artificial intelligence and human computer interaction on the design of bibliographic information retrieval systems, and presents design principles of a prototype system that uses semantically based searches and a knowledge base consisting of conceptual frames. (10 references) (CLB)

Twenty college students, naive to Blissymbols, were asked to "guess" the meaning of 64 Blissymbols presented without their word gloss. The influence of symbol representativeness and the concreteness of associated word labels on the symbols'"guessability" was analyzed. The guessability of a symbol's gloss was significantly…

The linguistic complexity of humor is illustrated with examples of word play translated from French to English and English to French. Examples from the writings of James Joyce and Marcel Proust are highlighted. (CB)

Investigates the influence of the prefix "o-/ob-" on the choice of case for nominal objects of prefixed verbs, using a semantic field analysis. Focuses on four semantic functions: (1) objective; (2) locative; (3) factitive; and (4) comparative. The results are useful both to theoretical linguists and to teachers of Russian. (LMO)

Investigates the interaction of syntax, semantics, and pragamatics from the perspectives of functional constraints on sentence processing. Findings reveal that native speakers of Italian first become aware of the importance of the concept of word order in a second language before being able to determine the specifics of word order in that…

Outlines some applications of Natural Language Processing, the capacity of computers to process human language, to language teaching. The role of syntactic parsing (the assigning of grammatical structure to sentences by computer) and semantically based processing is examined. (Author/SED)

Instructional strategies targeted for differentiating between German verb synonyms have involved: (1) extended paraphrases or definitions in German and/or English; (2) reference to stylistic and/or contextual differences; and (3) the use of syntactic and/or semantic features. Application of these strategies is shown with the…

Presents rules for the correct use of the French pronouns "ce" and "il," based on the criterion of discourse coherence and an understanding of the principles underlying the use of demonstrative vs. personal pronouns. (MSE)

Describes a study done to determine whether the degree of children's familiarity with component words was related to (1) their ability to produce productive patterns as opposed to associative and grouping patterns, and (2) their ability to use broader scope rather than lexically based patterns. (SED)

Investigates the effects of structural cueing (color or no color) and decision level (rote or semantic) on students' verbatim retention of technical prose and concludes that the results support the distinctiveness of encoding hypothesis for learning via the microcomputer. (DF)

Ideas for using entire comic strips or parts of cartoons to teach coherence, cultural information, vocabulary, semantics, grammar, syntax, discourse, and other elements of language in the French language classroom are presented and illustrated. (MSE)