Explores "political diglossia" in contemporary Poland, the unofficial, underground language of antipropaganda that arose in reaction to state propaganda. Colloquial and official designations for police and security forces are compared, and the semantics of relevant words and expressions are studied. Language is shown to reflect social…

Longitudinal observation of one- to three-year-olds' (N=2) acquisition of complement phrasal construction in Korean found that, in spite of typological differences between English and Korean, both syntactic and semantic characteristics were shared by children acquiring complement structure in the two languages. (Author/CB)

Describes aspects of lexico-semantic variation in Nigerian English. The causes and types of variation are discussed within the a sociolinguistic framework, and implications of such variations, with reference to international intelligibility and communication strategies, are examined. (20 references) (Author/OD)

A case study illustrates how the technique of semantic mapping can be used to help seriously emotionally handicapped adolescents organize and disclose their thoughts and feelings in stress-engendering situations, structure teacher-student interaction by providing a format, and enable the teacher to collect specific notes for later consultation…

Examines features of the negotiation of meaning between learners and teachers of English-as-a-Second-Language, and distinguishes between the declarative knowledge that words have particular meanings and the procedures typically employed for realizing this declarative knowledge. Negotiation exercises based on a checklist of the dimensions of…

Aims to heighten teacher awareness of the semantic, syntactic, and phoneme-grapheme transfer problems that Chinese students face. Provides teaching suggestions involving phonology, vocabulary, syntax, and morphology. Urges reading teachers to use the visual modality to help make the transfer to the English script system more successful. (RS)

Investigated overextensions in comprehension and production, using the preferential-looking model, in 99 children (ages 1;9 to 2;3) who were asked to find the referent that matched the label they were given in real and anomalous trials. Results confirm that overextensions in production are not diagnostic of children's underlying semantic…

Examines the use of gestures by German, Thai, and Tagalog speakers. The study shows how, by careful examination of what recipients are doing at the moment when a speaker produces a gesture, evidence can be derived as to whether the gestural component of the utterance is being attended. (19 references) (MDM)

Investigated third and sixth graders' understanding of factive presupposition using two tasks: one requiring an abstract truth judgment of the verb complement, the other calling for informal judgment of consistency between the target sentence and the negation of its complement. Results indicated the development of factive presupposition is an…

This article proposes that meaning and form (the sound-letter correspondences) are both important in beginning reading, but that initially they should be taught separately. Support for this position is provided, and a two-stage model of preliteracy development is offered, with the first stage emphasizing meaning and the second stage emphasizing…

Explored bilingualism between Jamaican patois and standard English to gain insight into the semantic lexicon and investigate if there is extinction, replacement, or extension of the patois meanings with the linguistically shared words, such as "salad," in 20 adults given 2 tasks to perform. Results suggest modification of the compound…

This study analyzed error recovery patterns based on eye movement measures of sentence parsing, across reading level and error type, in 10 adolescents with reading disabilities and 10 controls. The groups' error recovery strategies were similar in pattern and frequency; patterns were largely organized, strategic, and efficient; and multiple…

The intuitions and reasoned judgments of second-language learners of English were compared on a number of semantic and syntactic phenomena in the language. Because scores on the semantic tasks were higher than on syntactic tasks, it is assumed that classroom instruction should follow the same route. (24 references) (Author/LB)

This study, involving 40 preschool children with normal cognitive abilities, determined the effects of initial teaching of semantic elements on compound Blissymbol acquisition, retention, and generalization in a story-telling context. Results indicated that the initial teaching of elements did not contribute to compound acquisition and retention…

A study demonstrated that the problem-solving ability of 45 first grade, Hispanic, bilingual children was related to the semantic structures of word problems in a similar manner for both of the children's languages and in a manner similar to that of monolingual speakers. (Author/LB)