The Soviet position on vocabulary and the relationships among intelligence, language, and culture holds that thoughts and words have different developmental roots and that there are more differences than likenesses between them. In this United States study, 105 students grouped by their having parents in three different employment categories were…

It is suggested that models of human problem solving are useful in the analysis of word fluency (WF) test performance. In problem-solving terms, WF tasks would require the subject to define and clarify the conditions of the task (task acquisition), select and employ appropriate strategies, and monitor one's performance. In modern neuropsychology,…

Methods for second language vocabulary development in the intermediate and advanced level English classroom are described. Rather than require students to memorize lists of words, the teacher should give students a better understanding of the process of vocabulary development by showing them how to refine their use of new lexical items and implant…

This paper discusses how an understanding of speech acts contributes to the communicative competence in foreign language learning. Reviewing John Searle's five categories of speech acts (1976), the directive is discussed in terms of its manifestations in various foreign languages. Examples of directives in English, German, French, and Spanish are…

A study investigated the rating scale used in the Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR) oral interview, focusing on the concept of vocabulary underlying assessment. The study examined the differences in strategies used by fluent native speakers and non-fluent non-native speakers to avoid disruption of communication in real conversation when…

There is a need for basic readability research and for an easily applied and accurate new readability formula. Two steps taken toward the development of such a formula are the revision of a vocabulary list for primary grades and the combination of reading exercises given at different grade levels into a single scale of ascending difficulty. Much…

Vocabulary words frequently used in the media and popular literature can be taught by using a modified foreign language laboratory method whereby the students are introduced to the words aurally. First the students are read a concocted paragraph that incorporates the new vocabulary. This is followed by repetition in which the paragraph or dialogue…

Most college vocabulary books lack the sophistication of a complex. Rather, they reflect the characteristics of congeries or disparate objects grouped together without any logical basis. Vocabulary study in college should focus on the process of concept formation in all its complexity, with emphasis on the relationship between the specific and…

Since concepts are the mental divisions man makes among the concrete and abstract phenomena of his environment so he may generate, maneuver, and control their relationships in a manner ot satisfy his physical, emotional, social, and aesthetic needs, concepts should be the vortex of intelligence. Too often students are taught as if they lack a…

The paper examines the role of morphological (word) cues in reading and considers the implications for deaf students. Theories on the importance of decoding and morphological comparison in competent reading comprehension are reviewed, and studies on how successful deaf readers learn morphological cues are described. Findings show that deaf readers…

A comparison of four college-level elementary German textbooks reveals significant differences in the numbers of vocabulary entries in each textbook. Further comparison of three of the textbooks with the basic German vocabulary lists provided in "Kontaktschwelle Deutsch als Fremdsprache" and in "Das Zertificat Deutsch als Fremdsprache" reveal in…

The purpose of this papeer is to provide an empirical analysis of four subtests of the High School and Beyond (HS&B) sophomore test battery. This analysis of item bias uses the 1980 test data of the sophomore cohort. Blacks and whites were matched on the total score of four subtests: Vocabulary, Reading, Mathematics--Part I, and…

Although knowledge of multimeaning words is important for reading comprehension, deaf readers may know only the most common meanings or nuances of high-frequency multimeaning words. Results of a study are reported in which 33 profoundly hearing impaired students stratified into three equal age groups (ages 10, 11, and 12) were administered a…

An examination of the word-finding problems and nonverbal communication in the conversations of three aphasic patients revealed three different patterns of communicative strategies and success in different kinds of activities, such as tests and conversation. One, with mainly a parietal lesion, hesitates often with turn-keeping gestures and stops…

In 1922, Otto Jespersen hypothesized that women were more fluent (exhibited less hesitation in oral expression) than men because they had smaller and more central vocabularies, consisting of common words and combinations. Men's vocabularies were considered more extensive due to the inclusion of numerous novel, technical, and infrequently used…