The structure of semantic meaning: A developmental study

According to the “Semantic Differential” the connotative meaning of words can be quantified in statistically defined dimensions where every word is uniquely located on the dimensions Evaluation (E), Potency (P), and Activity (A). We studied 249 children between 9 and 18 years of age who rated 72 German nouns on 12 bipolar adjective scales. Three age groups were compared: 9–11, 12–14, and 15–18 years. Varimax‐rotated factor analysis yielded the classical EPA dimensions that were independent of age. This indicates that the basic structure and dimensionality of the semantic space is stable. On the other hand, the connotative meaning of individual words changed with age, and it was also affected by gender. In about half of the cases boys differed in their ratings from girls. Our data confirm that the EPA structure is stable, and is not affected by age. Development of connotative meaning or emotion is reflected, however, by systematic changes of the factor scores of individual words over the 10 years span studied.     

双语Stroop效应的性别差异研究

虽然许多研究发现男性和女性在语言能力上存在显著差异,但性别差异是否影响第二语言的水平和学习能力尚存在争议,相关研究较少。Stroop范式是语言研究的经典方法,它利用颜色信息和语义信息的相互干扰推论被试心理词典的表征结构。本研究利用此范式探讨不同性别的第二语言学习者在言语表征上的差异。结果显示被试性别与文字材料、性别与刺激类型均存在显著的交互作用,表明不同性别被试在第二语言表征上存在显著差异。     

第二语言句子加工的ERP研究

研究者对第一语言句子加工的事件相关电位(ERP)进行研究,提出了句子加工三阶段模型及对应的ERP成分。第二语言(L2)句子加工的ERP研究结果很不一致。首先,从句子加工的ERP反应模式上来看,大多数研究发现L2学习者的ERP反应模式和母语者有质的差异,少数研究发现L2学习者加工L2句子的ERP模式类似母语者,但其反应的时间进程、波幅或分布与母语者有显著差异。被试的学习年龄、熟练程度以及学习者的两种语言的相似性程度可能是影响第二语言句子加工ERP反应的主要因素。     

Establishing five derived mands in three adolescent boys with autism

Three 14-year-old boys with diagnoses of autism learned to mand for the delivery or removal of tokens by presenting nonsense syllables (A(1-5), respectively). A match-to-sample procedure was used to establish conditional discriminations between the 5 A stimuli and 5 B stimuli and between the B stimuli and 5 C stimuli. Subsequently, each participant was able to use the C stimuli to mand, illustrating a transfer of function, although 1 participant first required multiple-exemplar training.     

Recent research on emergent verbal behavior: clinical applications and future directions

This paper describes recent studies that have evaluated the functional independence of verbal operants. Procedures that facilitate the emergence of untrained verbal operants and important areas of future research to increase efficiency of language programs for children diagnosed with developmental disabilities are discussed.     

Sociolinguistic awareness and false belief in young Cantonese learners of English

In this study, we examined whether sociolinguistic awareness and false belief were uniquely related in 3- and 4-year-old Cantonese-speaking children learning English as a second language. The English-use background of these children varied so that they possessed sociolinguistic awareness to different degrees. Results indicated that sociolinguistic awareness predicted false belief uniquely after controlling for age, nonverbal intelligence, English vocabulary, and family income for both the second language learners and the more balanced bilinguals. The group difference in false belief was adequately explained by the corresponding difference in sociolinguistic awareness over and above the other variables. Such findings provide evidence for the claim that false belief understanding is critically related to sociolinguistic awareness, which in turn is influenced by how a second language is learned.     

Uneven Profiles: Language Minority Learners' Word Reading, Vocabulary, and Reading Comprehension Skills

English reading comprehension skill development was examined in a group of 87 native Spanish-speakers developing English literacy skills, followed from fourth through fifth grade. Specifically, the effects of Spanish (L1) and English (L2) oral language and word reading skills on reading comprehension were investigated. The participants showed average word reading skills and below average comprehension skills, influenced by low oral language skills. Structural equation modeling confirmed that L2 oral language skills had a large, significant effect on L2 reading comprehension, whereas students' word-level reading skills, whether in L1 or L2, were not significantly related to English reading comprehension in three of four models fitted. The results converge with findings from studies with monolinguals demonstrating the influence of oral language on reading comprehension outcomes, and extend these findings by showing that, for language minority learners, L2 oral language exerts a stronger influence than word reading in models of L2 reading.     

Children's Production of Unfamiliar Word Sequences Is Predicted by Positional Variability and Latent Classes in a Large Sample of Child-Directed Speech

We explore whether children's willingness to produce unfamiliar sequences of words reflects their experience with similar lexical patterns. We asked children to repeat unfamiliar sequences that were identical to familiar phrases (e.g., A piece of toast) but for one word (e.g., a novel instantiation of A piece of X, like A piece of brick). We explore two predictions-motivated by findings in the statistical learning literature-that children are likely to have detected an opportunity to substitute alternative words into the final position of a four-word sequence if (a) it is difficult to predict the fourth word given the first three words and (b) the words observed in the final position are distributionally similar. Twenty-eight 2-year-olds and thirty-one 3-year-olds were significantly more likely to correctly repeat unfamiliar variants of patterns for which these properties held. The results illustrate how children's developing language is shaped by linguistic experience.     

An on-line study of Japanese nesting complexity

This paper reports the results of a self-paced reading experiment in Japanese in which the materials consisted of four versions of successively more nested syntactic structures. It was found that (1) people read the more nested materials slower than the less nested materials; and (2) the locus of the relative slowdown occurred early in the nested structures. There was no corresponding slowdown when processing the verbs at the end of each clause. The results are therefore not predicted by retrieval-based integration accounts of syntactic complexity. Rather, the results support expectation-based accounts of syntactic complexity for these materials.     

Metaphor and the Reshaping of Our Cognitive Fabric

Mary Gerhart and Allan Russell view our world of meanings as a fabric of concepts and relations. Metaphor bends this fabric, superimposing one concept on another. While Gerhart and Russell are right to view metaphor as a cognitive rather than a purely linguistic phenomenon, their model misses the danger inherent in a cognitive restructuring that leaves some features of a concept highlighted and others backgrounded. When the bending of the conceptual fabric becomes permanent, the essential metaphorical insight is lost, leaving a skewed understanding of reality. We have a tendency to retain the metaphorically altered cognitive topography while forgetting its nonliteral genesis. Thus, the metaphoric process is one from which proceeds not only insight but also, necessarily, misconception.