scholarly journals The ability of young learners to construct word meaning in context

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 547-578
Author(s):  
Yuko Goto Butler
Keyword(s):  
Word Meaning ◽  
The United States ◽  
Metacognitive Knowledge ◽  
Receptive Vocabulary ◽  
Read Aloud ◽  
Emergent Readers ◽  
Word Meanings ◽  
Oral Fluency ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Unknown Words

This study examines young English readers’ ability to infer word meanings in context and to use metacognitive knowledge for constructing word meanings in relation to their reading performance. The participants were 61 fourth-grade students in the United States, comprising 24 monolingual English-speaking (ME) students and 37 English-as-a-second-language (L2) students; each group was also divided into strong and emergent readers in English. Participants were asked to read aloud paragraphs containing words unfamiliar to them in two different contextual conditions (i.e., explicit and implicit conditions), to guess the unfamiliar word meanings, and to tell a teacher how they arrived at the inferred meanings. Quantitative analyses found significant differences between strong and emergent readers in their oral fluency as well as in their ability to infer word meanings and articulate their use of metacognitive knowledge. Although significant differences were found in the ability to infer word meanings and the use of metacognitive reasoning between ME and L2 students, such differences disappeared after controlling for the size of students’ receptive vocabulary. Qualitative analyses also revealed differences in the kinds of knowledge and strategies that strong and emergent readers relied on when constructing the meaning of unknown words in both explicit and implicit contexts.

“Corplum is a core from a plum”: The advantage of bilingual children in the analysis of word meaning from verbal context

2011 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
STEFKA H. MARINOVA-TODD
Keyword(s):  
Independent Schools ◽  
Standardized Test ◽  
Word Meaning ◽  
Receptive Vocabulary ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Test Results ◽  
Word Meanings ◽  
Word Context ◽  
The Usa

The possible advantage of bilingual children over monolinguals in analyzing word meanings from verbal context was examined. The subjects were 40 third-grade children (20 bilingual and 20 monolingual) recruited from independent schools in the USA. The two groups of participants were compared on their performance on a standardized test of receptive vocabulary and an experimental measure of word meanings, the Word–Context Test. Results revealed that on average, the bilingual children had smaller vocabularies in English. The bilinguals deduced the meaning from context of more words than the monolingual children, although there were no differences between groups on the rate of reaching the target meanings for words on which they were successful, and on the quality of their definitions. Moreover, bilingual children approached the task differently and they showed greater flexibility when analyzing word meanings from verbal context, thus indicating that bilinguals may be more efficient vocabulary learners than monolinguals.

Der verheißungsvolle Kontext und seine Leistungen bei der Erschließung von Wortbedeutungen

2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 (69) ◽  
pp. 33-68
Author(s):  
Ulrike Haß
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Model ◽  
Empirical Study ◽  
Word Meaning ◽  
Word Meanings ◽  
Unknown Words

AbstractThe paper addresses the problems learners (L1) have to encounter while deducing word meaning from a given (written) context. The first part presents a theoretical model of context for that purpose. The main parts show the results of two approaches: First, a typical text from a schoolbook is examined to point out the principal potential of a text to deduce the meanings of words unknown to the reader. The second approach presents the results of an empirical study with more than 400 students, who were asked to mark unknown words and helpful context elements in a given text. The results of both approaches point at major and minor strategies of readers when looking for explanations of word meanings. Finally, a typical context seems to be much less helpful than teachers lean on.

The Speech-Language Assessment of English Language Learning Students: A Non-Standardized Approach

2013 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 95-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Kraemer ◽  
Allison Coltisor ◽  
Meesha Kalra ◽  
Megan Martinez ◽  
Bailey Savage ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
English Language ◽  
Language Assessment ◽  
The United States ◽  
English Language Learning ◽  
Assessment Practices ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
English Speaking

English language learning (ELL) children suspected of having specific-language impairment (SLI) should be assessed using the same methods as monolingual English-speaking children born and raised in the United States. In an effort to reduce over- and under-identification of ELL children as SLI, speech-language pathologists (SLP) must employ nonbiased assessment practices. This article presents several evidence-based, nonstandarized assessment practices SLPs can implement in place of standardized tools. As the number of ELL children SLPs come in contact with increases, the need for well-trained and knowledgeable SLPs grows. The goal of the authors is to present several well-establish, evidence-based assessment methods for assessing ELL children suspected of SLI.

Rethinking Canada: Canadian Studies and Study Abroad

2000 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Beach ◽  
George Sherman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
University Admissions ◽  
American University ◽  
Canadian Universities ◽  
Canadian Education ◽  
Studying Abroad ◽  
Canadian Studies ◽  
French Speaking ◽  
English Speaking

Americans have been studying “abroad” in Canada on a freelance basis for generations, and for many different reasons. Certain regions of Canada, for example, provide excellent, close-to-home opportunities to study French and/or to study in a French-speaking environment. Opportunities are available coast-to-coast for “foreign studies” in an English-speaking environment. Additionally, many students are interested in visiting cities or areas from which immediate family members or relatives emigrated to the United States.  Traditionally, many more Canadians have sought higher education degrees in the United States than the reverse. However, this is about to change. Tearing a creative page out of the American university admissions handbook, Canadian universities are aggressively recruiting in the United States with the up-front argument that a Canadian education is less expensive, and a more subtle argument that it is perhaps better.

scholarly journals Greater female first author citation advantages do not associate with reduced or reducing gender disparities in academia

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 1283-1297
Author(s):  
Mike Thelwall ◽  
Pardeep Sud
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
The United States ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Science Technology ◽  
Small Fields ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Author Citation ◽  
And Mathematics ◽  
Weak Tendency

Ongoing problems attracting women into many Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects have many potential explanations. This article investigates whether the possible undercitation of women associates with lower proportions of, or increases in, women in a subject. It uses six million articles published in 1996–2012 across up to 331 fields in six mainly English-speaking countries: Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. The proportion of female first- and last-authored articles in each year was calculated and 4,968 regressions were run to detect first-author gender advantages in field normalized article citations. The proportion of female first authors in each field correlated highly between countries and the female first-author citation advantages derived from the regressions correlated moderately to strongly between countries, so both are relatively field specific. There was a weak tendency in the United States and New Zealand for female citation advantages to be stronger in fields with fewer women, after excluding small fields, but there was no other association evidence. There was no evidence of female citation advantages or disadvantages to be a cause or effect of changes in the proportions of women in a field for any country. Inappropriate uses of career-level citations are a likelier source of gender inequities.

The Estado da India and the Estado do Brasil. Opportunities for Research in Portuguese Overseas History

Itinerario ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 116-129
Author(s):  
A.J.R. Russell-Wood
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Political History ◽  
The United States ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
American Historical Association ◽  
History Of ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
English Speaking World ◽  
Interest In Research

In this year marking the sexcentenary of the birth of Prince Henry, known erroneously to the English speaking world as ‘the Navigator’, and the 450th anniversary of the Portuguese arrival in Japan, it is fitting to take stock of what has been achieved and what remains concerning research on Portuguese overseas history. In November 1969 a conference was held at the Newberry Library in Chicago to ‘stimulate in the United States scholarly interest in research on Brazil's colonial past’. In November 1978 an International Seminar on Indo-Portuguese History was held in Goa occasioned by ‘an awareness of a relative stagnation in the field of Indo-Portuguese historical studies, especially in India’. This was prompted by the feeling of a dearth of new interpretations, shortage of studies in English, and neglect of political history, biography and social and economic history. Whereas the tone of the Newberry Library meeting was upbeat as to what junior scholars were achieving, and Charles Boxer pointed with pride to scholarly accomplishments since 1950, by 1984 a lecture to mark the occasion of the centennial of the American Historical Association noted grounds for concern regarding studies in the United States on colonial Brazil and this situation has deteriorated further during the decades of the 80s and early 90s. By way of contrast, in 1981 Charles Boxer noted the vitality of the Estado da India in its broadest geographical meaning as a subject for historical research by Portuguese and how ‘after years — I might even say centuries – of neglect by foreigners, the history of the old Estado da India has lately come into its own in the wider world’. This was seconded by M.N. Pearson who noted that ‘Goan historiography seems to be on the verge of a renaissance’.

Revitalizing Difference in the HapMap: Race and Contemporary Human Genetic Variation Research

2008 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 471-477 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer A. Hamilton
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Variation ◽  
Human Genome ◽  
Genetic Research ◽  
The United States ◽  
Genome Project ◽  
Human Genetic Variation ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
The Social ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
The Human Genome Project

In 2000, researchers from the Human Genome Project (HGP) proclaimed that the initial sequencing of the human genome definitively proved, among other things, that there was no genetic basis for race. The genetic fact that most humans were 99.9% the same at the level of their DNA was widely heralded and circulated in the English-speaking press, especially in the United States. This pronouncement seemed proof that long-term antiracist efforts to de-biologize race were legitimized by scientific findings. Yet, despite the seemingly widespread acceptance of the social construction of race, post-HGP genetic science has seen a substantial shift toward the use of race variables in genetic research and, according to a number of prominent scholars, is re-invoking the specter of earlier forms of racial science in some rather discomfiting ways. During the past seven years, the main thrust of human genetic research, especially in the realm of biomedicine, has shifted from a concern with the 99.9% of the shared genome — what is thought to make humans alike — towards an explicit focus on the 0.1% that constitutes human genetic variation. Here I briefly explore some of the potential implications of the conceptualization and practice of early 21st century genetic variation research, especially as it relates to questions of race.

Morphological Knowledge as an Aid to Word Learning: A Cross-Situational Word Learning Study

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Finley
Keyword(s):  
Word Learning ◽  
Word Meaning ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Artificial Language ◽  
Initial Training ◽  
Experimental Conditions ◽  
Morphological Knowledge ◽  
Semantic Categories ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Morphological Cues

The present study explores morphological bootstrapping in cross-situational word learning. Adult, English-speaking participants were exposed to novel words from an artificial language from three different semantic categories: fruit, animals, and vehicles. In the Experimental conditions, the final CV syllable was consistent across categories (e.g., /-ke/ for fruits), while in the Control condition, the endings were the same, but were assigned to words randomly. After initial training on the morphology under various degrees of referential uncertainty, participants were given a cross-situational word learning task with high referential uncertainty. With poor statistical cues to learn the words across trials, participants were forced to rely on the morphological cues to word meaning. In Experiments 1-3, participants in the Experimental conditions repeatedly outperformed participants in the Control conditions. In Experiment 4, when referential uncertainty was high in both parts of the experiment, there was no evidence of learning or making use of the morphological cues. These results suggest that learners apply morphological cues to word meaning only once they are reliably available.

Univision, Telemundo, and the Rise of Spanish-Language Television in the United States

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig Allen
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Mass Communication ◽  
The United States ◽  
Spanish Language ◽  
Spanish Speaking ◽  
History Of ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
American Society ◽  
The U.S

The first completely researched history of U.S. Spanish-language television traces the rise of two foremost, if widely unrecognized, modern American enterprises—the Spanish-language networks Univision and Telemundo. It is a standard scholarly history constructed from archives, original interviews, reportage, and other public materials. Occasioned by the public’s wakening to a “Latinization” of the U.S., the book demonstrates that the emergence of Spanish-language television as a force in mass communication is essential to understanding the increasing role of Latinos and Latino affairs in modern American society. It argues that a combination of foreign and domestic entrepreneurs and innovators who overcame large odds resolves a significant and timely question: In an English-speaking country, how could a Spanish-speaking institution have emerged? Through exploration of significant and colorful pioneers, continuing conflicts and setbacks, landmark strides, and ongoing controversies—and with revelations that include regulatory indecision, behind-the-scenes tug-of-war, and the internationalization of U.S. mass media—the rise of a Spanish-language institution in the English-speaking U.S. is explained. Nine chapters that begin with Spanish-language television’s inception in 1961 and end 2012 chronologically narrate the endeavor’s first 50 years. Events, passages, and themes are thoroughly referenced.

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