Presents a rationale for undertaking the study of language. Views this study as a psychological investigation into how the self forms an identity of itself through its language, rather than how it is formed by its language. Thus, the structure of language is seen as a representational system, allowing a multiplicity of meanings. (SL)

Discusses focusing, the manner in which speakers center attention on a particular element of discourse, and describes a process model of focusing that specifies what syntactic, semantic, and world knowledge constraints are needed for a hearer to track a speaker's focus in a discourse. (FL)

Reports on research examining the effect of linguistic presupposition on the solving of three-term series problems. (Author/RM)

Discusses the past and future development of languages and the relationship of this development to cultural factors. (Text is in Spanish.) (CLK)

This paper provides an overview of second language acquisition (SLA) research over the past several decades and highlights the ways in which it has retained its original applied and linguistic interests and enhanced them by addressing questions about acquisition processes. After discussing disciplinary contexts (SLA research and applied…

Research supported by a grant to the senior author from the Australian Research Grants Committee. (DD)

Research supported by a grant from the Office of Naval Research. (DD)

Research supported by grants to the University of Minnesota, Center for Research in Human Learning, from the National Science Foundation, the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development, and the Graduate School of the University of Minnesota. (DD)

Discusses communicational aspects of Rorschach data. (RS)

Infants learn their language by first determining, independent of language, the meaning which a speaker intends to convey to them, and by then working out the relationship between the meaning and the expression they heard. (Author)

Selects technical and popular writings from three scientists in each of four fields, and finds differences in the visual-verbal imagery which each field uses. (MB)

The ways that children and adults use their limited cognitive processes in comprehending the complex input of a second language are discussed, and an information-processing approach to second-language learning is proposed and supported in a number of areas of second language research. Implications for research and teaching are examined. (MSE)