Development of Word Definition Skill in Persian-speaking 54-90-month-olds

Objectives: Word definition skill is a complex language ability in which meta-linguistic awareness and literacy skills play a critical role. The present study examined the development of word definition skills in Persian-speaking children aged 4.5 to 7.5 years, concerning content and form aspects. Methods: This was a cross-sectional and analytic-descriptive study. The study subjects were 107 children of three age groups, as follows: 54-65-month-olds, 66-77-month-olds, and 78-90-month-olds. The study participants were selected from kindergartens and schools in districts 1, 7, and 17 of Tehran City, Iran, by multi-stage sampling method. In the word definition task, children were requested to define the words. To analyze the obtained data, the Kruskal-Wallis test was used. Results: The obtained results indicated that the mean score of content (P=0.001) and form (P=0.002) aspects of word definition significantly increased with age in the study participants. Discussion: A shift from functional and objective responses towards meta-linguistic definitions, i.e. further developed in terms of content and form, was observed with aging. At the age of 7 years, definitions reflect the hierarchical nature of nouns, and applying the class name begins at this age. The age of reaching a specific class seems to be affected by the lexical category.

Vocabulary Gains in Bilingual Narrative Intervention

Purpose The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the effect of bilingual narrative intervention on vocabulary gains in Hebrew (school language) and English (home language) among English–Hebrew bilinguals, using a block design (one language at a time), and to determine whether there was cross-linguistic transfer to the language that was not receiving intervention. Method Sixteen English–Hebrew bilingual children participated in the study using an adaptation of the Puente de Cuentos intervention. Vocabulary was examined using a word definition task before the intervention, post English intervention, post Hebrew intervention, and 4 weeks after the interventions ended to examine maintenance of skills. Results Repeated-measures analyses of variance revealed that children made significant gains in vocabulary in the language of intervention as expected. In addition, children made cross-linguistic gains in Hebrew during the English intervention, but made no gains in English following Hebrew intervention. Conclusion These results underscore the need to provide language support in the home language to ensure growth and that intervention in the home language does not hinder growth in the school language.

Innovative technologies in Romano-Germanic philology research (the case of lexical-semantic explication of German and Russian nominations “husband”, “spouse”)

The article deals with the methodological research problems of Romano-Germanic philology as in the case of lexical-semantic explication of German and Russian nominations “husband”, “spouse” from the viewpoint of the comparative ethno-linguistic analysis. Comparative ethno-linguistic description of the lexical units in the article is carried out according to the methods of the ethno-semantic analysis, which makes it possible to correlate the word definition with the life of a certain group of people. The aim of the methodology is to find out the universal and specific national characteristics of the lexical units in the German and Russian worldview, mental schemes and ethno-mental world of the native speakers.