In this article, the author demonstrates that the semiotic model proposed by Charles Morris enables us to optimize our understanding of technical communication practices and provides a good point of inquiry. To illustrate this point, the author exemplifies the semiotic approaches by scholars in technical communication and elaborates Morris's model…

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.…

This article investigates verb placement, especially Verb second (V2), in post-puberty second language (L2) learners of two closely related Germanic V2 languages: Swedish and German. Hakansson, "et al." (2002) have adduced data from first language (L1) Swedish-speaking learners of German in support of the claim that the syntactic property of V2…

Background: Past research has shown that watching a subtitled foreign movie (i.e. foreign language in the soundtrack and native language in the subtitles) leads to considerable foreign-language vocabulary acquisition; however, acquisition of the grammatical rules has failed to emerge. Aims: The aim of this study was to obtain evidence for the…

This study examined the role of empathy in the choice of syntactic form and the degree of independence of pragmatic and syntactic abilities in a range of aphasic patients. Study 1 involved 9 English-speaking and 9 Japanese-speaking aphasic subjects with 10 English-speaking and 4 Japanese normal controls. Study 2 involved 14 English- and 6…

Two types of causative constructions in Korean behave differently both syntactically and semantically. This paper presents the syntactic differences between syntactic causative constructions and morphological causative constructions in terms of merger process of argument structures, and in the Case assignment in the two constructions in terms of…

Many English handbooks and "grammars" fail to offer sound advice to writers about matters of exactness in diction and precision in sentence structure. A gap between linguists and English teachers, the literary bias of most graduate departments of English, and a national obsession with the all-powerful capabilities of common sense, have…

This study explores sound-symbolic, or mimetic, words in the Japanese language, the majority of which are never entered in Japanese dictionaries, and which may not be fully understood in all their nuances by native speakers. The extensiveness of the sound-symbolic system is related to the semantic under-differentiation of Japanese verbs. An…

Evidence is presented that suggests a genetic relationship between the Klamath and Sahaptian languages. The current list of potential Klamath-Sahaptian cognates contains core lexical material sufficient to demonstrate the validity of a genetic relationship, although many details of sound correspondence have yet to be worked out. But it is not only…

To account for coercive force in questions posed by counsel to defendants and witnesses, several levels of speech must be addressed. Forensic linguistics literature discusses the scale of coerciveness as reflected in the syntactic form of the questions. It is argued that this type of analysis fails to account for the inferences made by hearers…

In an anniversary tribute to Paul Diderichsen, this report suggests that the theories and analyses put forth by Diderichsen in 1935 are central to both the general and empirical research on the Germanic languages. Particular emphasis is placed on the proposal to analyze the "verb-second-analysis" phenomenon in Germanic languages.…

A study tested the validity of a theory of count/mass syntax in word learning. The theory proposes that children infer one of two procedures, depending on whether the referent is an object or a non-solid substance. Subjects were 36 2-year-olds, divided according to three experimental conditions. All were taught a novel word with reference to…

Two hypotheses related to the emergence of multiword speech were explored: (1) that multiword speech follows developments in children's ability to map communicative intents to single-word expressions; and (2) that the acquisition of these mapping principles paves the way for the emergence of syntax. The developments consist of an increase in the…

A system of quantitative techniques for describing the English language from a number of perspectives, intended for the language analyst, is presented. The grammar combines an emerging knowledge of semantics with existing detailed knowledge of syntax. The primary unit of analysis is the predication, a group of related concepts expressed as a…