A computer program devised to analyze text by the use of case grammar is described. The program tests a text against the expectations created by a narrative situation and by the connotative values in the narrator's choice of words. It determines spatial concepts attached to various English words and analyzes the spatial relationships in syntactic…

A study investigating the effects of "text linguists'" revisions on the comprehensibility of expository prose had as subjects 92 high school juniors who read original and revised versions of two passages from a high school history textbook. The revisions included changes regarding the given-new contract, schemata, reference, lexical…

The primary goal of early reading instruction, according to this paper, should be to teach children to comprehend written discourse in a manner similar to that for oral discourse because both types of discourse require decoding ability--graphic or acoustic. The paper asserts that to simply design reading instruction to achieve the subgoal of…

The unique position of WH words in Slavic languages is discussed, with specific reference to Bulgarian and Serbo-Croatian. The multiple fronting characteristics of Bulgarian and Serbo-Croatian differ in terms of the following positions and behaviors: extraction from embedded questions; clitic placement and other indications of constituent status;…

An approach to text translation that focuses on understanding the original text and the writer's intentions is outlined. The approach uses a sequence of steps including: studying the text carefully, knowing the writer's background, analyzing the text, understanding the writer's use of words, normalizing the text's grammatical form, composing the…

This volume contains papers presented in connection with a symposium held in 1975 and sponsored by Abo Akademi, for the purpose of discussing ongoing research in word-order studies. Papers include: (1) a prolegomena by N.E. Enkvist; (2) "On the Ordering of Sister Constituents in Swedish," by E. Andersson; (3) "What is New…

A study explored context effects on two selected indexes of communicative competence in the narrative language of a sample of first grade children. The 30 subjects each completed 2 tasks--the retelling of a story that had been read to them and the dictation of an original story. These narratives were recorded and analyzed for linguistic competence…

In an analysis of a processing activities model of memory applied to connected discourse, 206 college students assigned to eight conditions in two studies evidenced significantly greater recall when provided with semantic level tasks than either surface feature analysis or reading control (intentional and incidental) conditions. Additionally,…

This conference presentation is offered as a prolegomenon, or introduction, to a paper and research project. The issues of whether prolegomena are modernist explanatory devices and whether postmodern prolegomena are possible are discussed. The paper proposes a research inquiry into "postmodern teaching" initiated through the metaphor of…

To test three specific hypotheses about recall as a function of four categories of logical relations, a study was done to determine whether logical relations systems of prose analysis can be used to predict recall. Two descriptive passages of naturally occurring expository prose were used. Each text was parsed into 45 statements, consisting of…

This paper reports on a project involving student recall of the dialogue in a movie and retention of the "anchor," which in this case refers to a videotape recording of "To Kill a Mockingbird." The project looked at how students retained knowledge over a few days and what kind of activities resulted from expertise with an…

Impromptu speech is heard only once, at a rate of perception that depends on the speaker's delivery, and is specifically adapted to the listeners. These features trigger cognitive activities that facilitate translation. Impromptu speech is characterized by a constant interconnection between cognitive competence and language competence and between…

Conference interpreting is an oral impromptu activity. Since texts delivered at conferences range from unprepared oral texts to prepared written texts, there can be clashes between the impromptu features of conference interpreting and features of prepared written texts. Knowledge of the field of discourse and of the predictability of text…

The problems encountered by English as second language (ESL) students in selecting verb tenses for their written discourse were investigated. Tape recorded interviews with four freshman composition students who had been referred for intensive work on verb errors were analyzed for students' explanations of their errors and the contexts in which…

Communities of one sort or another are found in the literature of many disciplines and are used to explain any number of things: linguists examine language in terms of speech communities, while composition researchers write of discourse communities. Linguists have advanced various definitions of communities, but Stanley Fish's "Is There a…