The effects of message structure, required recall structure, and receiver apprehension on the recall of message information were studied in a 2 x 2 x 2 factorial analysis of variance with fixed effects. Subjects were 238 college students who scored either high or low in communication apprehension. A category clustering scheme was used to…

As may be seen from data collected during language observations of four children over a period of two and a half years, children's sentences are not simply flawed versions of adult counterparts, but seem to result from a different grammar. These data indicate that logical formatives, such as "even," and "only," are sentence-initial constituents.…

The recent deluge of published studies employing sentences or connected discourse as the unit of study has left unsolved the question of whether the two types of materials are essentially similar or importantly different. An understanding of this issue is crucial to theory, since the existence of major psychological differences between the…

Analysis of the use of the connective "but" by 3- to 9-year-olds indicated that all most commonly used the word to signal semantic relationships and for pragmatic functions. Younger children most frequently used "but" when causal or precausal relationships existed, and older children used "but" more to encode complex contrast. (Author/CB)

Although exophoric reference is crucial to appreciating the role of context in spoken language (both to the speaker in producing meaning and to the listener in determining meaning), analysis of eight beginning German textbooks revealed that only two provided all three types (directional, pronominal, and definite article) of such reference. (CB)

Describes an investigation of the notion that sentence perception involves holding single clauses or propositions in a temporary buffer. Concludes that this notion is false and that, instead, more recently presented or important material may become more accessible in memory as presentation of the sentence proceeds. (Author/SED)

A study used two-dimensional recall to identify the units of recall in the process of remembering, in order to investigate the correspondence of experimentally identified memory units to theoretically defined propositional units, and the correspondence of recall organization to story schema. (Author/AM)

Reaction time to reading sentences which were not clearly interrelated was longer when a paragraph was titled to give it to more discourse (paragraph) level meaning. The presence of titles had no effect on reaction times for meaningful paragraphs, however. (CP)

Subjects asked to be brief tended to use messages concerned with the exchange of information more than messages dealing with rate of communication, judgments, and feedback. These subjects also used higher percentages of nouns and adjectives and lower percentages of pronouns, verbs, prepositions, and articles than unrestricted subjects. (Author/RL)

This study compared relative effectiveness of imitative treatment and conversational recast treatment in 7 children (ages 55-79 months) with language impairment and 7 controls. Target acquisition was faster under conversational recast treatment for both groups. Language-impaired children learned grammatical structures as efficiently as…

Examines cohesive ties that children and adults use during verbal explanations to resolve incongruent discourse information. Identifies age-related changes in children's use of adversatives and causal connectives. Finds less use of personal referents and demonstratives among preschoolers, and no decreased use of additives and temporal connectives…

In this study, 23 young children with developmental delays interacted with an adult, who conducted 2 play sessions using 2 interactive styles differing in the adult's use of topic-continuing wh-questions. Use of the questions supported child conversational continuations at all language levels. (DB)

Presents analyses of the use of the essential connectives "so,""because,""then," and "but" in narratives of children aged three to nine years. Connectives were used semantically, pragmatically, or, rarely, in error. Age changes were minimal. Structural complexity and elaboration improved throughout the…

Two experiments were conducted to determine whether the connective structure of a passage might protect interrelated information from interference by irrevelant information in sentence recognition. Subjects of both experiments were college students enrolled in introductory psychology classes. In each, a rating task for unconnected phrases was…

Developmental changes in the expression of contrast in child discourse were investigated. Contrast is defined as a psychological phenomenon and applied to the domain of discourse topics. The development of the ability to produce utterances that are topically related to the previous conversational turn is considered. Four types and three levels of…