A generalized lexical scanner for a translator writing system.

Originally presented as the author's thesis (M.S.), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

A structural and lexical comparison of the Tunica, Chitimacha, and Atakapa languages /

Mode of access: Internet.

El impacto del enfoque léxico sobre la adquisición de la competencia léxica en aprendices de español como lengua extranjera

Este estudio presenta los resultados de una investigación que examina la efectividad del enfoque léxico como forma de instrucción explícita sobre la adquisición de la competencia léxica en aprendices de español como lengua extranjera. El estudio esta guiado por dos preguntas de investigación. La primera pregunta de investigación (PI 1) examina el impacto del enfoque léxico sobre la adquisición de la competencia léxica. La segunda pregunta de investigación (PI 2) examina si la efectividad del enfoque léxico en el grupo de alumnos examinados viene condicionada por las creencias de los participantes acerca de las estrategias empleadas en dicho método. La aplicación del enfoque léxico se basó en una propuesta pedagógica consistente en una unidad didáctica de creación propia. Se analizaron los datos obtenidos tanto de forma cuantitativa como cualitativa. Los resultados confirmaron empíricamente la validez del enfoque léxico como principio metodológico para adquirir la competencia léxica. Del mismo modo, se encontró una relación entre las creencias de los participantes y las estrategias de aprendizaje empleadas.

Automaticity in L2 learning: Correlation between vocabulary proficiency and response time in word recognition

Automaticity (in this essay defined as short response time) and fluency in language use are closely connected to each other and some research has been conducted regarding some of the aspects involved. In fact, the notion of automaticity is still debated and many definitions and opinions on what automaticity is have been suggested (Andersson,1987, 1992, 1993, Logan, 1988, Segalowitz, 2010). One aspect that still needs more research is the correlation between vocabulary proficiency (a person’s knowledge about words and ability to use them correctly) and response time in word recognition. Therefore, the aim of this study has been to investigate this correlation using two different tests; one vocabulary size test (Paul Nation) and one lexical decision task (SuperLab) that measures both response time and accuracy. 23 Swedish students partaking in the English 7 course in upper secondary Swedish school were tested. The data were analyzed using a quantitative method where the average values and correlations from the test were used to compare the results. The correlations were calculated using Pearson’s Coefficient Correlations Calculator. The empirical study indicates that vocabulary proficiency is not strongly correlated with shorter response times in word recognition. Rather, the data indicate that L2 learners instead are sensitive to the frequency levels of the vocabulary. The accuracy (number of correct recognized words) and response times correlate with the frequency level of the tested words. This indicates that factors other than vocabulary proficiency are important for the ability to recognize words quickly.

Meaning selection and the subcortex: Evidence of reduced lexical ambiguity repetition effects following subcortical lesions

Recent research indicates that individuals with nonthalamic subcortical (NS) lesions call experience difficulties processing lexical ambiguities in a variety of contexts. This study examined how prior processing of a lexical ambiguity influences subsequent meaning activation in 10 individuals with NS lesions and 10 matched healthy controls. Subjects made speeded lexical decisions oil related or unrelated targets following homophone primes. Homophones were repealed with different targets biasing the same or different meanings oil the second presentation. The effects of prime-target relatedness, interstimulus interval (200 or 1250 ms), and same vs different meaning repetition were examined Both the patient and control groups showed printing when the same homophone meaning was biased oil repetition. When a different meaning was biased on the second presentation. no priming was evident in the controls, while facilitation remained present for the NS group, consistent with aberrant meaning selection and deactivation processes. These findings are discussed in terms of age and task-related repetition effects and current conceptions of frontal-subcortical involvement in cognition.

Testing the protracted lexical restructuring hypothesis: The effects of position and acoustic-phonetic clarity on sensitivity to mispronunciations in children and adults

Although developmental increases in the size of the position effect within a mispronunciation detection task have been interpreted as consistent with a view of the lexical restructuring process as protracted, the position effect itself might not be reliable. The current research examined the effects of position and clarity of acoustic-phonetic information on sensitivity to mispronounced onsets in 5- and 6-year-olds and adults. Both children and adults showed a position effect only when mispronunciations also differed in the amount of relevant acoustic-phonetic information. Adults' sensitivity to mispronounced second-syllable onsets also reflected the availability of acoustic-phonetic information. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to the lexical restructuring hypothesis. (c) 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Top-down influences on lexical selection during spoken word production: A 4T fMRI investigation of refractory effects in picture naming

Spoken word production is assumed to involve stages of processing in which activation spreads through layers of units comprising lexical-conceptual knowledge and their corresponding phonological word forms. Using high-field (4T) functional magnetic resonance imagine (fMRI), we assessed whether the relationship between these stages is strictly serial or involves cascaded-interactive processing, and whether central (decision/control) processing mechanisms are involved in lexical selection. Participants performed the competitor priming paradigm in which distractor words, named from a definition and semantically related to a subsequently presented target picture, slow picture-naming latency compared to that with unrelated words. The paradigm intersperses two trials between the definition and the picture to be named, temporally separating activation in the word perception and production networks. Priming semantic competitors of target picture names significantly increased activation in the left posterior temporal cortex, and to a lesser extent the left middle temporal cortex, consistent with the predictions of cascaded-interactive models of lexical access. In addition, extensive activation was detected in the anterior cingulate and pars orbitalis of the inferior frontal gyrus. The findings indicate that lexical selection during competitor priming is biased by top-down mechanisms to reverse associations between primed distractor words and target pictures to select words that meet the current goal of speech.

Searching for the trace: The influence of age, lexical activation and working memory on sentence processing

To investigate the stability of trace reactivation in healthy older adults, 22 older volunteers with no significant neurological history participated in a cross-modal priming task. Whilst both object relative center embedded (ORC) and object relative right branching (ORR) sentences is-ere employed, working memory load was reduced by limiting the number of wordy separating the antecedent front the gap for both sentence types. Analysis of the results did not reveal any significant trace reactivation for the ORC or ORR sentences. The results did reveal, however, a positive correlation between age and semantic printing at the pre-gap position and a negative correlation between age and semantic printing at the gap position for ORC sentences. In contrast, there was no correlation between age and priming effects for the ORR sentences. These results indicated that trace reactivation may be sensitive to a variety of age related factors, including lexical activation and working memory. The implications of these results for sentence processing in the older population arc discussed.

Introducing reference semantics via refinement

Two types of semantics have been given to object-oriented formal specification languages. Value semantics denote a class by a set of values representing its objects. Reference semantics denote a class by a set of references, or pointers, to values representing its objects. While adopting the former facilitates formal reasoning, adopting the latter facilitates transformation to object-oriented code. In this paper, we propose a combined approach using value semantics for abstract specification and reasoning, and then refining to a reference semantics before transforming specification to code.

A partial-correctness semantics for modelling assembler programs

Previous work on formally modelling and analysing program compilation has shown the need for a simple and expressive semantics for assembler level programs. Assembler programs contain unstructured jumps and previous formalisms have modelled these by using continuations, or by embedding the program in an explicit emulator. We propose a simpler approach, which uses techniques from compiler theory in a formal setting. This approach is based on an interpretation of programs as collections of program paths, each of which has a weakest liberal precondition semantics. We then demonstrate, by example, how we can use this formalism to justify the compilation of block-structured high-level language programs into assembler.