Contains status reports of research in three areas of speech production: functional properties of the speech production apparatus, control principles underlying speech production, and the biological basis of the speech production process. (RL)

Describes the work by Silvio Ceccato regarding machine translation systems and procedures, exploring such aspects of his work as functional philosophical approaches to machine translation, notional spheres, correlational analysis, and type classifications. Ceccato envisioned many of the methods that are now being applied in machine translation…

Investigates an aspect of child phonology and consonant harmony, and inquires whether representational or processing deficits are responsible for its occurrence. (36 references) (GLR)

Examines research on the impact of sub-word levels in the computation of word phonology for alphabetic English and logographic Japanese kanji. Suggests some involvement of sub-word level processing in the computation of word phonology in kanji. Suggests structural differences between On-reading words (of Chinese origin) and Kun-reading word (of…

Focuses on children's developing ability to recognize ironic and sarcastic speech acts. Reviews several theoretical approaches to examining nonliteral language processes, outlined by linguists concerned with adults' use of discourse irony. Reviews research pertaining to children's comprehension of irony and sarcasm. (Author/KB)

In a recent study of conceptual combination, Estes (2003) presented evidence for the priming of relational information in the absence of shared constituents between the prime and target (e.g., "pancake spatula" was interpreted more quickly following "bacon tongs" than following "city riots"). He argued that these data support the view that…

Response to intervention (RTI) has little application to the identification of and access to accommodations for adults with learning disabilities (LD). However, the critical topics raised during the reauthorization of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (IDEA; 2004) pertaining to LD eligibility criteria are similar…

Studies have investigated and proposed different potential influences on children's initial mappings of object words to referents. Each proposal is a variant on the idea that children use one source of evidence about the structure of word meanings or of grammar to discover other forms of structure, and in doing so they "bootstrap" their…

This paper examines the relation between literacy and children's understanding of a set of concepts referred to as the "say/mean distinction," which is the notion that what a text says contrasts with subjective interpretations a reader or listener brings. (Author/MT)

Stating that the most pressing and puzzling scientific questions are questions about properties, not about change, the authors examine Piaget's and other theories of human development. Disputes the constructivist view that the initial cognitive state is one of emptiness, showing that from birth, humans react to certain stimuli in specific ways,…

Children with language disorders experience problems in three dimensions of semantics: (1) content of content (reference, referents, concepts); (2) form of content (structural units of meaning); (3) use of content (functional variation in meaning). Teacher intervention strategies in each area (e.g., for problems of reference, sentence meaning,…

The recognition of teaching as a special relationship among individuals is currently being overlooked in much contemporary educational research and policymaking. The author examines the philosophy of rationality in teaching and relates it to the educational vision presented in George Orwell's novel, "Nineteen Eighty-Four." (CB)

Surveys modern language and cognitive theories and their implications for the teaching of undergraduate composition. (JL)

Past studies of autistic children's memory for linguistic materials have shown that autistics have a special linguistic coding difficulty. Because the autistic deficit stems from a failure to use semantic and syntactic knowledge or from a failure to acquire such forms, future research should explore the mechanics underlying this deficit. (PJM)

Reviews studies that have explored interrelationships among linguistic components in children with language disorders and describes the controversy over the interpretation of these linguistic interrelationships. Explanations for the occurrence or absence of linguistic trade-offs, including limited capacity processing models, and the implications…