Analysis of Charles Dickens’ †Sketches by Boz Essay

‘The Streets-Morning’ by Charles Dickens is an extract taken from ‘Sketches by Boz.’ It is a descriptive piece and follows prominent features of the literary sketch technique, as it contains no prominent plot. The speaker narrates the â€Å"appearance presented by the streets of London an hour before sunrise on a summer’s morning.† The extract is in the first person narrative. This feature adds intensity and supports the use of details. First person narrative is generally considered unreliable due to lack of witnesses and external verification; however, the detached and objective narration by the speaker prompts readers to think otherwise – â€Å"now and then a rakish looking cat runs stealthily†¦bounding first on the water-butt then on the dust hole†¦Ã¢â‚¬  The sentence structures used support the use of detail and imagery. The speaker uses complex-compound sentences that are long with two or more sub-clauses. The use of these help create the atmosphere and heavy early morning slumber – â€Å"There is an air of cold, solitary desolation about the noiseless streets which we are accustomed to see thronged at other times by a busy, eager crowd, and over the quiet, closely shut buildings†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Through this narrative, readers are made aware of the close attention to detail the speaker employs. The mood of the extract is established through the sentence structure and setting. A relaxed and comfortably detached perspective is evident. In many ways it is similar to the morning itself, gently unfolding as the darkness fades. The narrative time and context is established through the subjects described in the setting. â€Å"Coach-stands† lying deserted in the larger thoroughfares remind readers of the 19th century. This is supported by the fact that they are described as ‘coach stands’ and not bus stands. Imagery plays an essential role in a literary sketch and is seen widely in this extract. The speaker uses concrete and abstract imagery. The use of metaphors lends a sense of what the speaker is feeling or trying to describe to the reader. Such metaphors are: â€Å"The days are swarming with life and bustle† the reference to honeybees shows a restlessness which was similarly used by John Keats in ‘Ode to Autumn† – And still more, later flowers for the bees, †¨Until they think warm days will never cease.† The bee metaphor is used to show activity that contrasts with the early morning street. The second metaphor is – â€Å"stillness of death is over the streets,† perhaps the most foreboding of lines in the extract, this metaphor could serve as a possible foreshadowing for impending events. The street itself becomes an important motif. It represents a path that leads somewhere, however, readers could question whether this could be leading to activity or stagnation. This theory is supported with the images of the â€Å"drunken, the dissipated, and the wretched.† The policeman similarly, is also preoccupied with his â€Å"deserted prospect.† The description of the street is similarly presented in Tennessee Williams’ ‘A Streetcar Named Desire†Ã¢â‚¬â€œ â€Å"The houses mostly white frame, weathered grey with rickety outside stairs and galleries and quaintly ornamented gables to the entrances of both. It is the first dark of an evening in early May.† The houses become symbols of who their inhabitants are in the extract. They give readers insights to where they live, how they live and who they are. The â€Å"quiet, closely-shut buildings† are perhaps the only privacy the residents have. The speaker brings in social context through this description and the tone shifts to one of fragmentation and futility with the description of – â€Å"The last houseless vagrant whom penury and police have left in the streets, has coiled up his chilly limbs in some paved corner, to dream of food and warmth.† The social context and strata becomes ironic when the last drunken man is home before sunlight, while the â€Å"orderly† part of the population are still asleep.† The opening lines of T.S. Eliot’s ‘Preludes’ also refers to an early morning scene similar to the one in the extract, using personification – â€Å"The morning comes to consciousness Of faint stale smells of beer From the sawdust-trampled street With all its muddy feet that press To early coffee-stands.† Human qualities are given to the cat who is – â€Å"rakish looking.† The character of whose develops as the speaker gives him gender and infers that â€Å"his character depended on his gallantry.† The use of personification adds further detail to the narrative with – â€Å"A partially opened bedroom-window here and there, bespeaks the heat of the weather, and the uneasy slumbers of its occupant.† The extract uses language in distinct and deliberate ways to shape meaning. The vocabulary used helps infer that the speaker is mature; this is seen with use of words such as â€Å"penury,† â€Å"profligate† and â€Å"dissipated.† A sentence of importance in shaping such meaning is – â€Å"The drunken, the dissipated and the wretched have disappeared.† The trochaic features at the end of each word, helps to reveal the distant and condescending manner in which the speaker is viewing these people. The order in which these words are presented form a climatic effect. Also seen is the use of the adverb â€Å"then† in describing the cat’s actions, which gives dramatic effect – â€Å"Bounding first on the water-butt, then on the dust-hole, and then alighting on the flag-stones.† The use of inversion by the speaker helps readers to concentrate on certain parts of the narrative. This is done in deliberation to gain readers’ attention, particularly in – â€Å"An occasional policeman may alone be seen at the street corners,† as opposed to the conventional ‘may be seen alone.’ Such emphasis is also used in – â€Å"cold, solitary desolation.† The speaker employs onomatopoeia to describe a drunken man’s inebriation with – â€Å"roaring out the burden of the drinking song of the previous night.† The speaker has a noted tone of detached indifference. This mood could be due to the futility of the modern age and monotony of these peoples lives in the eyes of a keen observer. The historical, social context comes back to the forefront and the void between the country and the urban life is seen. This effect of the 19th century and industrial revolution is addressed in – â€Å"The few whose unfortunate pursuits of pleasure, or scarcely less unfortunate pursuits of business cause them to be less acquainted with the scene.† Grammar and punctuation support meaning. The use of dashes shows a flow of thought or in the case of describing the cat, shows action and continuity. The use of the color grey in the â€Å"somber light of daybreak† supports the mood and futile atmosphere, seen also in O’ Henry’s ‘Gift of the Magi’ – â€Å"Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag. She stood by the window and looked out dully at a gray cat walking a gray fence in a gray backyard.† The extract concludes with a reference to the figures in the early morning streets as â€Å"exceptions† other than which the â€Å"streets presents no signs of life, nor the houses of habitation.†

The Effects of Dysfunctional Families

Self-destruction of the Mind Many children grow up in dysfunctional families and in order to know what a dysfunctional family is, we have to understand how it operates. No family is perfect and disagreements, bickering and yelling are normal. But the word we are looking for here is â€Å"balance†. This is exactly what dysfunctional families’ lack, whether parents are controlling, deficient, alcoholic or abusive, they have an adverse, long term effect on the children even long after they have grown up and left home. Many of these adults from dysfunctional families often feel inadequate and incomplete.They have difficulty with intimate relationships and often develop compulsive behaviors and addictions, being self-destructive in their own mind. Let us consider a family that is too controlling, where parents are over dominating and do not allow their children simple fun and deny them of their independence. These parents continue to make decisions and control their children even at an age where it is unnecessary. So growing up and learning to be independent can be difficult, a feeling of anger and resentment may present itself.Transition into adulthood poses some struggle to these adults who often feel unsure of themselves and guilty because they feel as though they are disobeying their parents by making their own decisions. Let us take a look at the other extreme where parents are deficient in their roles and are not present in the rearing of their children. These parents leave their children to often fend for themselves which forces them to grow up too fast. Taking on adult responsibilities to make up for the parental inadequacy, these kids ignore their feelings and often grow up not knowing how to show emotion.They find it difficult to form and maintain intimate relationships, they fear getting close to others for fear of abandonment. They often develop a sense of helplessness and blame themselves for the absence of their parents. Whether there is too much parental discipline or a lack of guidance, children growing up without this balance often fear badly. And when alcohol, drug abuse and abusive behavior on the parents part is thrown in, this can be very damaging to these children all through their life. This kind of environment strikes terror in these children, they feel afraid to make mistakes and often live on the edge of fear.Abused children feel anger, frustration and are usually insecure. They do not feel comfortable at home and never voice their opinions. They do not trust easily and find it hard to maintain relationships. Adults grown up from alcoholic and abusive families develop all these negative character traits and often never grow out of them. Children of alcoholics and drug abusers are at much higher risk for developing substance abuse than are children in healthy families. Therefore, unfortunately many of these adults create their own pattern of compulsive behavior and addictions.The effects of dysfunctional families are long term and most times these children are robbed of their childhood. Whether families are over functioning by not allowing children breathing room to think for themselves or under functioning by neglecting the needs of their kids, these families are inconsistent and lack the proper balance of discipline and freedom. As a result these children grow up with trouble maintaining positive self-esteem, they often blame themselves for the dysfunctions in the family and this feeling of helplessness and unworthiness carries on throughout their adulthood.They struggle with trust and intimate relationships and sadly some fall into the pit of alcoholism and drug abuse. These children are victims and these negative self-images they have of themselves causes them to become self-destructive in their own mind. With positive thinking and the correct mindset and with the right help they can overcome these difficulties. References Bentont, S. (1993). www. k-state. edu. Retrieved from ht tp://www. k-state. edu/counseling/topics/relationships/dysfunc. html Bohli, E. (2012). Symptoms of adults from dysfunctional families. Retrieved from http://www. erikbohlin. net/Handouts/Coming_from_dysfunction. pdf

Compare and Contrast Between Egypt and China

Clinical Forum The Lexicon and Phonology: Interactions in Language Acquisition Holly L. Storkel1 Michele L. Morrisette Indiana University, Bloomington 24 LANGUAGE, SPEECH, AND HEARING SERVICES IN SCHOOLS †¢ Vol. 33 †¢ 24–37 †¢ January 2002  © American Speech-Language-Hearing Association 0161–1461/02/3301–0024 ABSTRACT: The purpose of this paper is to underscore the importance of the link between lexical and phonological acquisition by considering learning by children beyond the 50-word stage and by applying cognitive models of spoken word processing to development. Lexical and phonological variables that have been shown o influence perception and production across the lifespan are considered relative to their potential role in learning by preschool children. The effect of these lexical and phonological variables on perception, production, and learning are discussed in the context of a two-representation connectionist model of spoken word processi ng. The model appears to offer insights into the complex interaction between the lexicon and phonology and may be useful for clinical diagnosis and treatment of children with language delays. KEY WORDS: language development, lexicon, phonology, neighborhood density, phonotactic probabilityLSHSS To acquire the native language, a child must do two things: Learn the words of the language and extract the relevant phonological characteristics of those words. For the most part, the acquisition of words and sounds has been investigated independently. That is, some lines of investigation concentrate exclusively on how the words of the language are acquired (e. g. , Carey & Bartlett, 1978; Dollaghan, 1985; Heibeck & Markman, 1987; Jusczyk & Aslin, 1995; Rice & Woodsmall, 1988), whereas other lines of research examine how the sounds of the language emerge (e. g. , Dinnsen, Chin, Elbert, &Powell, 1990; Dyson, 1988; Smit, Hand, Freilinger, Bernthal, & Bird, 1990; Stoel-Gammon, 1985). The mutual influence of lexical and phonological development is an area that has received only limited attention. The few descriptive and experimental studies that have addressed this issue, however, provide preliminary evidence for an interaction between lexical and phonological development. Descriptive studies primarily have examined the relationship between the phonological characteristics of babble and first words. Studies of typically developing children have shown that first words are phonologically similar to babble (e. . , Oller, Wieman, Doyle, & Ross, 1976; Stoel-Gammon & Cooper, 1984; Vihman, Ferguson, & Elbert, 1986; Vihman, Macken, Miller, Simmons, & Miller, 1985). For example, the distribution of consonants and the syllable structure of first words are identical to that of babble (Vihman et al. , 1985). This association between lexical and phonological development is observed in children with precocious language development as well as in children with delayed language development (Paul & Jennings, 1992; Stoel-Gammon & Dale, 1988; Thal, Oroz, & McCaw, 1995; Whitehurst, Smith, Fischel, Arnold, & Lonigan, 991). In particular, children who know many words tend to produce a greater variety of sounds and sound combinations, whereas children who know few words tend to produce a limited variety of sounds and sound combinations. There appears to be a potentially robust relationship between the phonological characteristics of first words and babble. This is suggestive of an intimate connection between word learning and productive phonology. In addition to descriptive evidence, experimental studies provide further support for the hypothesis that lexical and phonological development influence one another. For xample, one study of young children with expressive language delay demonstrated that treatment focused on 1 Currently affiliated with the University of Kansas. Storkel †¢ Morrisette: The Lexicon and Phonology 25 increasing a child’s expressive vocabula ry led to subsequent improvements in phonological diversity (Girolametto, Pearce, & Weitzman, 1997; but see Whitehurst, Fischel et al. , 1991). This finding suggests that the breadth of a child’s lexical knowledge may influence phonological acquisition. An expansion of vocabulary in this case went hand in hand with an expansion of the sound system.In complement, there is experimental evidence that phonological characteristics may influence lexical acquisition. In particular, infants have been shown to produce novel words composed of sounds that are in their phonetic inventory more frequently than other novel words composed of sounds that are out of their phonetic inventory (Leonard, Schwartz, Morris, & Chapman, 1981; Schwartz & Leonard, 1982). Here, the child’s phonetic inventory influenced the acquisition of new words. Taken together, descriptive and experimental evidence suggests that phonological development and word learning utually influence one another, but one l imitation of this work is its emphasis on infants who produce fewer than 50 words (but see Shillcock & Westermann, 1998; Stoel- Gammon, 1998). This is relevant because a rapid increase in rate of word learning has been noted as children cross the 50-word threshold, leading some researchers to posit a fundamental change in the word learning process (Behrend, 1990; Bloom, 1973; Dore, 1978; Gopnik & Meltzoff, 1986; Mervis & Bertrand, 1994). Also at this point, it is hypothesized that children transition from a holistic to an analytic phonological system, which may demarcate a fundamental hange in phonological learning (Ferguson & Farwell, 1975; Vihman, Velleman, & McCune, 1994). The purpose of this paper is to examine this link between lexical and phonological development by considering the acquisition process beyond the 50-word stage and by applying a cognitive model of spoken word perception and production to this issue. In particular, lexical and phonological variables that have bee n shown to influence perception and production across the lifespan will be considered relative to their potential influence on learning by preschool children. Furthermore, a model that has been sed to explain spoken word processing in the fully developed system of adults is used to provide a framework for understanding the interaction between the lexicon and phonology in development. The term spoken word processing refers collectively to the act of perceiving and producing words in spoken language. The paper is organized to first provide background to the lexical variables of word frequency and neighborhood density and the phonological variable of phonotactic probability. A two-representation model of spoken word processing is introduced. This model depicts two types of mental representations, words versus sounds, providing a eans of understanding the interaction between these two different representations. The model is then applied to spoken word processing in the developing system of children and to lexical and phonological learning. Finally, the interaction between the lexicon and phonology will be reconsidered by examining the role of lexical variables in sound learning and phonological variables in word learning by preschool children who have surpassed the 50-word stage. A discussion of the implications of these lexical and phonological variables for clinical diagnosis and treatment will conclude the article. BACKGROUND TO LEXICAL ANDPHONOLOGICAL VARIABLES Two lexical characteristics that have emerged as relevant predictors of spoken word processing are word frequency and neighborhood density. Word frequency is the number of times a word occurs in the language. For example, sit is an infrequent word occurring only 67 times in a written sample of 1 million words. In contrast, these is a frequent word occurring 1,573 times in a written sample of 1 million words (KucUera & Francis, 1967). 2 Turning to neighborhood density, words presumably are organized into similarity neighborhoods in the mental lexicon based on phonological similarity.In particular, it is assumed that a similarity neighborhood includes all of the words differing from a given word by a one phoneme substitution, deletion, or addition (Luce & Pisoni, 1998). For example, neighbors of sit include words such as sip, sat, hit, it, and spit and neighbors of these include words such as those, tease, and ease. The number of neighbors defined in this way is the word’s neighborhood density. In total, sit has 36 neighbors and these has 9 neighbors (Nusbaum, Pisoni, & Davis, 1984). Thus, sit is said to reside in a dense neighborhood because it has many neighbors, whereas these is said to eside in a sparse neighborhood because it has relatively few neighbors. A phonological characteristic that appears influential in spoken word processing is phonotactic probability. One observation that has emerged from studies of language structure is that certain sound patterns are more li kely to occur than others. This likelihood of sound occurrence is termed phonotactic probability. Phonotactic probability generally is determined by counting the words in the language that contain a particular sound or sound pattern as well as the number of times those words occur (see Jusczyk, Luce, & Charles-Luce, 1994; Luce, Goldinger,Auer, & Vitevitch, 2000; Storkel, 2001; Storkel & Rogers, 2000; Vitevitch & Luce, 1998, 1999). To illustrate, the sound pattern of sit is a common sound sequence in English. The individual sounds (/s/, /I/, /t/) frequently occur in their given word positions in many frequent words of the language. For example, word-initial /s/ occurs in the words seat, safe, said, sat, sun, surge, soon, soot, soap, song, sock, south, soil, and size, as well as in many other words of the language. In addition, the adjacent sounds in sit (/sI/, /It/) frequently occur together in many frequent lexical items.The sound combination /sI/ is found in the words sing, sip, si ck, sin, and sill, as well as in other English words. In contrast, the sound pattern of these is a rare sound sequence, having individual sounds (/D/, /i/, /z/) 2Word frequency counts are available from a variety of sources including adult written (e. g. , KucUera & Francis, 1967), adult spoken (e. g. , Brown, 1984), child written (e. g. , Rinsland, 1945), and child spoken (e. g. , Kolson, 1960) databases. 26 LANGUAGE, SPEECH, AND HEARING SERVICES IN SCHOOLS †¢ Vol. 33 †¢ 24–37 †¢ January 2002 and sound combinations (/Di/, /iz/) that occur in relatively few words of the language.In fact, word initial /D/ is found only in the words this, them, then, thus, their, those, that, and their, and the sound combination /Di/ is not contained in any other words of the language. MODEL OF WORD PROCESSING The lexical variables of word frequency and neighborhood density and the phonological variable of phonotactic probability reportedly influence adults’ perception and production. This influence may be accounted for by a tworepresentation model of word processing (e. g. , Gupta & MacWhinney, 1997; Luce et al. , 2000). 3 This model may potentially provide insights into the complex interaction etween the lexicon and phonology in development, but the characteristics of the model and its success in capturing spoken word processing by adults will first be considered. An illustration of this model is given in Figure 1 for the word sit and in Figure 2 for the word these. The two types of representations in the model are lexical and phonological. The lexical representation corresponds to a word as a whole unit. In Figures 1 and 2, the lexical representation for the word sit, /sIt/, and these, /Diz/, is denoted by rectangles. In contrast, the phonological representation corresponds to the individual sounds or sound sequences.In Figures 1 and 2, the phonological representations for the words sit, /s/, /I/, and /t/, and these, /D/, /i/, and /z/, are illustr ated by the open circles. The structure of the lexical representation may influence perception and production by adults. Likewise, the characteristics of the phonological representation may play a role in adult spoken word processing. Interactions between lexical and phonological representations may also occur in adult word recognition and production. Each of these issues will be considered in turn. Lexical Representations This two-representation model is a connectionist model.One feature of a connectionist model is that representations can be activated. That is, hearing or thinking about a word provides external activation to a lexical representation. For a word to be recognized or produced, the activation of its representation must reach a set activation threshold. An activation threshold refers to the amount of activation that must accumulate in order for the representation to become available to consciousness. It is at this point that the listener recognizes the word or that the speaker selects the word to be produced. Representations can differ from one another in their resting threshold. The resting threshold efers to the initial level of activation of a representation before further external activation is accrued either by hearing the word or by thinking of the word. Past experience with the language has been proposed to alter the resting threshold of lexical representations. Specifically, when a lexical representation is frequently activated for recognition or production, the resting threshold supposedly increases. This provides a mechanism for learning the characteristics of the language, namely word frequency. Thus, words that are frequently recognized or produced presumably will have a higher resting threshold than words hat are infrequently recognized or produced. In Figures 1 and 2, resting threshold is depicted by the thickness of the rectangles. Heavier rectangles represent higher resting thresholds; lighter rectangles represent lower resting th resholds. The lexical representation of the frequent word /Diz/ in Figure 2 has a darker rectangle indicating a higher resting threshold than the lexical representation of the infrequent word /sIt/ in Figure 1. The implication of this difference in resting threshold for perception or production 3Note that the two-representation model we describe is a simplified and generic version of those described by Luce et al. 2000 and Gupta & MacWhinney, 1997. The interested reader is referred to the original manuscripts for complete details of the full models. Also, we consider the ability of this model to account for both perception and production, although the original models focus primarily on one aspect of spoken word processing. Figure 1. Illustration of a two-representation connectionist model of word processing for the word sit. Lexical representations are illustrated with rectangles. The thickness of the rectangle indicates the resting threshold as determined by word frequency (e. g. , sit is infrequent).Inhibitory connections between words are indicated by lines terminating in circles. The number of connections between words illustrates neighborhood density (e. g. , the neighborhood of sit is dense). Phonological representations are illustrated with circles. The thickness of the circle indicates the resting threshold based on phonotactic probability (e. g. , /s/, /I/, and /t/ are common). Facilitory connections between sounds are indicated by lines terminating in arrows. The thickness of the connecting line indicates the strength of the relationship based on phonotactic probability (e. g. /sI/ and /It/ are common). Storkel †¢ Morrisette: The Lexicon and Phonology 27 is that words with higher resting thresholds (i. e. , frequent words) are already more activated at rest than are words with lower resting thresholds (i. e. , infrequent words). As a result, these frequent words should require less external activation than infrequent words to reach the activatio n threshold for recognition or production and, thus, recognition or production should be facilitated. In fact, studies of spoken word recognition and production with adults support this claim. Adults recognize frequent words more rapidly nd more accurately than infrequent words (Landauer & Streeter, 1973; Luce & Pisoni, 1998) and produce frequent words faster and more accurately than infrequent words (Dell, 1990; Dell & Reich, 1981; Huttenlocher & Kubicek, 1983; Oldfield & Wingfield, 1965; Stemberger & MacWhinney, 1986; Vitevitch, 1997). This influence of experience on resting thresholds also allows for the possibility of individual differences across speakers because the exact resting threshold of a given word may vary from speaker to speaker based on a particular speaker’s unique language experience.Another feature of this two-representation connectionist model is that relationships among words are represented by connections. Connections between words are illustrated by lin es in Figures 1 and 2. These connections are important because they allow activation to spread between related words, damping or amplifying the related lexical representation’s activation. In this way, related lexical representations can influence the activation of the target lexical representation. The presence of two antagonistic processes, damping versus amplifying, are important in capturing decrements in performance and improvements in erformance, respectively. Damping activation is depicted in the model by inhibitory connections; amplifying activation is depicted by facilitory connections. An inhibitory connection damps the activation of the connected representation, thereby impeding that representation from reaching the activation threshold for recognition or production. In this case, recognition or production of the word would be slower or less accurate. In contrast, a facilitory connection amplifies the activation of the connected representation, thereby helping that representation reach the activation threshold for recognition or production.In this case, recognition or production of the word would be faster or more accurate. In Figures 1 and 2, inhibitory connections are depicted by lines terminating in filled circles and facilitory connections are depicted by lines terminating in arrows. Neighborhood membership is depicted by inhibitory connections between related lexical representations. For example, the lexical representation /sIt/ in Figure 1 has inhibitory connections to the lexical representations of all of its neighbors, such as /sut/, /pIt/, and /nIt/. Likewise, the lexical representation /Diz/ in Figure 2 has inhibitory onnections to its neighbors, such as /DoUz/, and /tiz/. Note that not all of the neighbors of sit and these are displayed in Figures 1 and 2 due to space limitations. For example, spit is omitted as a neighbor of sit. The strength of these connections are also based on the degree of association between words. Thus, wor ds that are more similar to one another will spread more activation between each other. In Figures 1 and 2, the strength of a connection is depicted by the thickness of the line. Heavier lines indicate stronger associations than lighter lines. Note that connections between lexical representations are all imilar in strength, as indicated by the uniform thickness of the lines. In Figure 1, the lexical representation /sIt/ has equally strong connections to /sut/, /pIt/, and /nIt/, as well as to all of its other neighbors. Similarly, in Figure 2, the lexical representation /Diz/ has equally strong connections to /DoUz/, /tiz/, and all of its neighbors. Thus, all neighbors of a word are considered equally related to the word. The importance of this architecture for perception and production is that the number of neighbors determines the degree of activation damping for the target word. A word like sit, which resides in a dense neighborhood, will eceive inhibition from many more words tha n a word like these, which resides in a sparse neighborhood. This leads to greater damping of activation for sit relative to these. As a result, a word from a dense neighborhood will be impeded in reaching the activation threshold for recognition or production. This claim is once again supported by data Figure 2. Illustration of a two-representation connectionist model of word processing for the word these. Lexical representations are illustrated with rectangles. The thickness of the rectangle indicates the resting threshold as determined by word frequency (e. g. these is frequent). Inhibitory connections between words are indicated by lines terminating in circles. The number of connections between words illustrates neighborhood density (e. g. , the neighborhood of these is sparse). Phonological representations are illustrated with circles. The thickness of the circle indicates the resting threshold based on phonotactic probability (e. g. , /D/, /i/, and /z/ are rare). Facilitory co nnections between sounds are indicated by lines terminating in arrows. The thickness of the connecting line indicates the strength of the relationship based on phonotactic probability (e. . , /Di/ and /iz/ are rare). 28 LANGUAGE, SPEECH, AND HEARING SERVICES IN SCHOOLS †¢ Vol. 33 †¢ 24–37 †¢ January 2002 from studies of word processing in adults. Adults recognize words from dense neighborhoods more slowly and less accurately than they do words from sparse neighborhoods (Luce & Pisoni, 1998; Luce, Pisoni, & Goldinger, 1990). Likewise, word pairs from dense neighborhoods are produced more slowly than are word pairs from sparse neighborhoods (Goldinger & Summers, 1989, but see Vitevitch, 2001a). 4 Phonological Representations The second type of representation in the model is the honological representation. It has been proposed that two aspects of the phonological representation are affected by phonotactic probability—resting threshold and connection strengt h. Considering resting threshold, recall that language experience alters resting threshold. As a result, sounds that are commonly encountered in recognition or production will likely have higher resting thresholds than those that are encountered rarely. In Figure 1, the phonological representation /s/, /I/, and /t/, has dark circles, indicating a higher resting threshold because these sounds commonly occur in the language.In contrast, in Figure 2, the phonological representation /D/, /i/, and /z/,5 has light circles, indicating a lower resting threshold because these sounds rarely occur. This difference in resting threshold indicates that common sounds are more activated at rest than are rare sounds. Consequently, common sounds should reach the activation threshold for recognition or production more rapidly than should rare sounds. Turning to connection strength, each sound has a facilitory connection to sounds that it may co-occur with, and the strength of these connections may be altered by language experience. When sounds are commonly encountered ogether in word processing, it is thought that the connection between the two sounds is strengthened. In this way, the model captures how an adult or child would learn the phonotactic probability of the language through experience. In Figure 1, the phonological representation /s/ has a strong facilitory connection to that of /I/ because these sounds commonly occur together in words of the language. In contrast, in Figure 2, the phonological representation of /I/ has a weak facilitory connection to that of /i/, because these rarely occur together. Because the strength of the facilitory connection determines how much ctivation will spread to the related sound, sound sequences with strong facilitory connections, namely common sound sequences, should reach the activation threshold for recognition or production more rapidly than should sound sequences with weak facilitory connections, namely, rare sound sequences. The i nfluence of phonotactic probability on resting threshold and connection strength leads to the prediction that common sound sequences should be recognized or produced more rapidly than rare sound sequences. Support for this hypothesis is found in studies of spoken word processing by adults. In fact, adults recognize common ound sequences more rapidly than they do rare sound sequences (Vitevitch & Luce, 1998, 1999; Vitevitch, Luce, Charles-Luce, & Kemmerer, 1997). A similar pattern is observed in speech production, where adults are faster to name a word if it is composed of a common sound sequence rather than a rare sound sequence (Levelt & Wheeldon, 1994). Interactions Between Lexical and Phonological Representations Turning to the interaction between lexical and phonological representations, it is important to note that there are facilitory connections between lexical and phonological representations.That is, /sIt/ has facilitory connections to /s/, /I/, and /t/, whereas /Diz/ is co nnected to /D/, /i/, and /z/. The lexical representations of the neighbors of /sIt/ and /Diz/ also have connections to phonological representations, but not all of these connections are shown in Figures 1 and 2 because it becomes difficult to follow the connections when all are presented together. For example, /sut/ should have facilitory connections to /s/ and /t/, but these are not displayed in Figure 1. The implication of these lexicalphonological connections is that once a lexical representation is activated, it will also activate its corresponding honological representation. Activation can also occur in the opposite direction, with a phonological representation activating corresponding lexical representations. These connections between lexical and phonological representations allow for interactions between lexical and phonological processing. One way that the interaction between lexical and phonological representations has been investigated in the fully developed system of adul ts is by considering the unique relationship between neighborhood density, a lexical variable, and phonotactic probability, a phonological variable. Namely, words from dense neighborhoods tend to e composed of common sound sequences, and words from sparse neighborhoods tend to be composed of rare sound sequences (Vitevitch, Luce, Pisoni, & Auer, 1999). The evidence detailed in the previous sections indicated that dense neighborhoods slow spoken word processing, whereas common sound sequences speed word processing. Given the association between neighborhood density and phonotactic probability, the inhibitory effect of neighborhood density and the facilitory effect of phonotactic probability would seem incompatible. If the two factors are associated, how is it that one aids word recognition and production but the ther interferes with it? If one appeals to the variable of neighborhood density, one would predict that processing of a word from a dense neighborhood, such as sit, would be 4In some cases, asymmetries have been noted in the effect of neighborhood density across perception and production. In fact, some models predict that dense neighborhoods should facilitate production (see MacKay, 1987; Vitevitch, 2001a). 5Note that computations of phonotactic probability are based on a 20,000- word dictionary generally consisting of uninflected word forms (see also Jusczyk et al. , 1994; Luce et al. 2000; Storkel, 2001; Storkel & Rogers, 2000; Vitevitch & Luce, 1998, 1999). Therefore, /z/ is considered to occur infrequently in uninflected word forms, although it may occur often as a plural morpheme. The status of lexical representations of inflected words is an open question. Storkel †¢ Morrisette: The Lexicon and Phonology 29 inhibited relative to a word from a sparse neighborhood, such as these. In contrast, if one appeals to the variable of phonotactic probability, one would predict that processing of a word having a common sound sequence, such as sit, would be facilitated relative to a word having a rare sound equence, such as these. How can processing of sit be both inhibited and facilitated? This paradox may be resolved by appealing to the tworepresentation model. If one type of representation is able to dominate word processing in a given context, this will dictate whether an inhibitory or facilitory effect is observed. The lexical status of the stimulus is predicted to influence the effect of neighborhood density and phonotactic probability on processing. In particular, lexical processing is predicted to dominate language tasks involving real words because real words have a lexical representation.In contrast, phonological processing is predicted to dominate language tasks involving nonwords because nonwords have no lexical representation. This prediction is borne out by evidence from studies of spoken word processing by adults. In fact, recognition of real words from dense neighborhoods is inhibited relative to real words from spar se neighborhoods, supporting the dominance of lexical processing (Vitevitch & Luce, 1998, 1999). In complement, recognition of nonwords composed of common sound sequences is facilitated relative to nonwords composed of rare sound sequences, supporting the dominance f phonological processing (Vitevitch & Luce, 1998, 1999). Because spoken word processing typically involves real words, lexical processing generally should dominate recognition and production (but see Vitevitch, 2001b). APPLICATION TO DEVELOPMENT The two-representation model seems to capture lexical and phonological influences on perception and production successfully in the fully developed system of adults. Can this model be applied to perception and production in the developing system of infants and children? To address this question, evidence of how the lexicon influences spoken word processing in infants and children is reviewed and ompared to the findings from adults. If the findings from the developing system parall el those from the fully developed system, then the two-representation model may easily be extended to the developing system. In contrast, if word processing in the developing system differs from word processing in the fully developed system, then the tworepresentation model may require modification before application to the developing system. This question is important because it bears on the issue of whether the tworepresentation model may offer insights into learning and clinical practice. Studies of the developing language system provide urther insight into the role of word frequency and neighborhood density in spoken word processing. Perception studies with infants have investigated aspects of the spoken input that infants attend to while building the mental lexicon (see Jusczyk, 1997 for review). In one representative study of word frequency, infants were exposed to sets of words that were frequently repeated in stories versus other sets of words that were infrequently repeated (Hohne, Jusczyk, & Rendanz, 1994; Jusczyk & Aslin, 1995). Results indicated that infants preferred listening to the frequently occurring words in the story. This finding suggests that nfants have the ability to attend to specific words in the input. Moreover, the infants in the study were able to differentiate words based on their frequency of occurrence. Word frequency has also been shown to influence young children’s production accuracy of target sounds. Leonard and Ritterman (1971) found that 7-year-old children had better production accuracy of target /s/ sounds in frequent versus infrequent words in the language (but see Moore, Burke, & Adams, 1976). Computational studies of young children have further explored the structure of words in the early lexicon relative to neighborhood density.These studies used receptive and expressive estimates of young children’s lexicons. One important finding was that young children have relatively sparse neighborhoods in compariso n to older children and adults (Charles-Luce & Luce, 1990, 1995; Logan, 1992). That is, a word in a young child’s lexicon would have fewer neighbors than that same word in an older child’s or an adult’s lexicon. Neighborhood density may increase across the lifespan as more phonetically similar words are added to the lexicon (Logan, 1992). This finding led to the hypothesis that young children se global recognition strategies to identify words (Charles- Luce & Luce, 1990, 1995). Because neighborhoods are so sparse, all of the fine-grained phonetic contrasts of language may not be necessary to uniquely disambiguate one word from another. Alternatively, it has been argued that children do rely on fine-grained recognition strategies (Dollaghan, 1994). The basis for this comes from the fact that young children do differentiate between minimally and phonetically similar words of the input. Even a word that has only one neighbor must still require fine-grained coding o n the part of the child for accurate recognition.Although these views about whether children use global or finegrained recognition strategies remain at odds, it is clear that the structure of words in the lexicon appears to be critically linked to the nature of a child’s phonological representations. Taken together, these findings support that a word’s frequency and its neighborhood density play a similar role in fully developed and developing lexicons. In the developing language system, sensitivity to phonotactic probability emerges early, with phonotactic probability influencing perception in a manner similar to adults.In perceptual tasks, 9-month-old infants listen longer to lists of words composed of common sound sequences than to those composed of rare sound sequences (Jusczyk et al. , 1994). Moreover, infants appear to acquire phonotactic probability rapidly in controlled listening conditions (Aslin, Saffran, & Newport, 1998; Saffran, Aslin, & Newport, 1996). Aft er listening to strings of nonsense syllables for a short period of time, 8-month-old infants are able to discriminate syllable sequences that commonly co-occur from those that rarely co-occur. That is, syllables that commonly co-occurred in the speech 0 LANGUAGE, SPEECH, AND HEARING SERVICES IN SCHOOLS †¢ Vol. 33 †¢ 24–37 †¢ January 2002 sample were treated as a whole word; syllables that rarely co-occurred were not treated as a whole word. The evidence indicates that infants may learn the likelihood of occurrence of sound sequences in the ambient language, and then they use this to parse continuous speech into individual words. Sensitivity to phonotactic probability continues into childhood, as shown in metalinguistic, perceptual, and production tasks. In metalinguistic tasks, children and adolescents are able to differentiate sound sequences that re legal in their language from those that are illegal (Messer, 1967; Pertz & Bever, 1975). Children, like adults , seem to have intuitions about phonotactics (e. g. , Vitevitch et al. , 1997). Perceptual and production studies provide evidence that children are also sensitive to the more finegrained distinction of common versus rare sound sequences. Relative to perceptual evidence, children rapidly extract the phonotactic probabilities of continuous strings of nonsense syllables. Like infants, children treat strings of syllables that commonly co-occur as an entire word and strings of yllables that rarely co-occur as a part of a word (Saffran, Newport, Aslin, Tunick, & Barrueco, 1997). In production, children are more accurate at producing sound sequences that are permissible in the ambient language than those that are not (Messer, 1967). Moreover, children are more accurate at repeating common rather than rare sound sequences (Beckman & Edwards, 1999). Likewise, when given a list of nonwords to remember, children recall more nonwords if the list contains common sound sequences than if it conta ins rare sound sequences (Gathercole, Frankish, Pickering, & Peaker, 1999).In childhood, sensitivity to phonotactic probability remains and appears to influence spoken word processing in a manner that parallels the fully developed adult system. The effects of word frequency, neighborhood density, and phonotactic probability on language perception and production in the developing system parallel those in the fully developed system. In terms of lexical variables, across the lifespan, processing of frequent words was facilitated relative to infrequent words, and processing of words from dense neighborhoods was inhibited relative to words from sparse neighborhoods. In terms of phonological variables, cross the lifespan, common sound sequences were recognized and produced more rapidly than were rare sound sequences. Given the similarity between the adult and child findings, it appears that the two-representation model can be applied to perception and production by children. APPLICATION T O LEARNING Because the two-representation model captures perception and production by children, it may also provide insights into learning by children. In the following two sections, insights of the two-representation model for sound change and word learning will be offered and evaluated relative to current findings.The studies reviewed focus on interactions between the lexicon and phonology in preschool and school-age children who have lexicons with many more than 50 words. These investigations provide evidence of whether lexical-phonological interactions continue in development beyond the 50-word stage. Promoting Sound Change When a sound is unknown, the child presumably will have no ambient, or adult-like, phonological representation for the target sound. In some cases, treatment may be needed to promote sound change. The goal of treatment then is to create an ambient phonological representation for the nknown sound, often by presenting the target sound in words and providing fee dback regarding production accuracy. Given the absence of an ambient phonological representation, lexical processing is predicted to dominate sound learning in this treatment context. Thus, lexical representations may influence the success of phonological treatment. In particular, treatment of the sound in frequent words should promote sound change relative to infrequent words. Furthermore, embedding the sound in words from dense neighborhoods should inhibit learning when compared to treatment of the sound in words from sparse neighborhoods.An experimental treatment study by Gierut, Morrisette, and Champion (1999) examined the role of lexical variables in phonological treatment (see also Morrisette & Gierut, in press). Twelve children with functional phonological delays, aged 3;0 (years;months) to 7;4, participated in an alternating treatments design to promote sound change. The characteristics of word frequency and neighborhood density were manipulated experimentally. Experimental conditions included treatment of all possible combinations of frequent/ infrequent words from dense/sparse neighborhoods. Each child was taught two sounds affiliated with the lexical haracteristics of the assigned conditions. For example, a child assigned to the frequent versus infrequent condition was taught one sound in frequent words and another sound in infrequent words. Treated sounds were excluded from the pretreatment inventory and were produced with 0% accuracy. Generalization accuracy in production of the treated sounds to untreated words and contexts was measured as the dependent variable and submitted to statistical analysis. Treatment conditions and corresponding results are shown in Table 1. Results revealed that for the lexical characteristic of ord frequency, phonological treatment using frequent words induced significantly greater generalization learning than did treatment of infrequent words. For neighborhood density, treatment in words from sparse neighborhoods ind uced significantly greater generalization learning than did treatment in words from dense neighborhoods. When the frequency conditions were compared to the density conditions, treatment in both frequent and infrequent words resulted in significantly greater generalization learning than did treatment in words from dense neighborhoods. Further, treatment in frequent and infrequent words resulted in reater or equivalent generalization learning than treatment of words from sparse neighborhoods. Overall, the characteristic of word frequency was most salient in inducing phonological change as compared to neighborhood density. Moreover, in every comparative Storkel †¢ Morrisette: The Lexicon and Phonology 31 condition, frequent words consistently facilitated sound change, whereas words from dense neighborhoods consistently failed to promote generalization learning. These results were replicated by Morrisette and Gierut (in press) and are consistent with the predictions of the two-repr esentation model.Frequent words in the language consistently emerged as facilitating spoken word processing and learning, whereas words from dense neighborhoods in the language consistently emerged as inhibiting spoken word processing and learning. Moreover, phonological learning by preschool children was influenced by the lexicon, paralleling previous findings from much younger children. Novel Word Learning Applying the two-representation model to novel word learning, a child presumably will have no corresponding lexical representation for a newly encountered word. In the absence of a lexical representation, the two-representation odel predicts that phonological processing will be most influential. Thus, phonological processing is hypothesized to influence the creation of a lexical representation for the novel word. Because phonological processing is facilitated for common over rare sound sequences, children should learn novel words composed of common sound sequences more rapidly t han they should those composed of rare sound sequences. Storkel and Rogers (2000) provided a direct test of this hypothesis that phonotactic probability should influence word learning. Typically developing school-age children from three age groups, age 7, 10, and 11, participated in a onword learning task, where half of the nonwords were composed of common sound sequences and half were composed of rare sound sequences. The target nonwords were associated with unfamiliar objects. Children were exposed to the nonword-object pairs in a lecture format, and referent identification was tested immediately following exposure. The results showed a significant interaction between phonotactic probability and age. The two older groups of children learned more common than rare sound sequences; the youngest group of children showed no difference in learning common versus rare sound sequences.This interaction between phonotactic probability and age was not predicted and was further investigated in a second study (Storkel, 2001). In Storkel (2001), word learning by preschool children was investigated in a multi-trial word learning paradigm. In particular, nonword learning was assessed in several tasks emphasizing either form or referent learning at multiple points in time. Preschool children were exposed to nonwords: Half were composed of common sound sequences and half were composed of rare sound sequences. The nonwords served as names for nonsense objects. The nonword-object pairs were mbedded in a story containing multiple story episodes with learning being assessed after each episode. Results showed that across measures of learning and exposures, preschool children learned more nonwords composed of common rather than rare sound sequences. Across the two studies, younger and older children seemed to learn novel words composed of common sound sequences more rapidly than they did those composed of rare sound sequences, supporting the predictions of the two-representation mod el. As in language perception and production tasks that are dominated by phonological processing, word learning was facilitated for common ound sequences relative to rare. Phonological characteristics appeared to play a role in word learning by preschool and school-age children, complementing previous findings with younger children. Phonology appeared to influence lexical development beyond the 50-word stage. Moreover, various aspects of phonology seem to impact development of the lexicon, including the child’s phonetic inventory and the phonotactic probability of the novel word (Leonard et al. , 1981; Schwartz & Leonard, 1982; Storkel, 2001; Storkel & Rogers, 2000). CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS The finding of a continued interaction between the exicon and phonology in children who have surpassed the 50-word threshold has clinical implications for children with functional phonological delays and children with specific language impairment. Children with functional phonological delays reportedly have a primary delay in the acquisition of phonology. Given the evidence documenting an interaction between the lexicon and phonology, lexical characteristics may play a role in promoting sound change. In contrast, children with specific language impairment appear to exhibit delays in lexical acquisition (e. g. , Dollaghan, 1987; Oetting, Rice, & Swank, 1995; Rice,Buhr, & Nemeth, 1990; Rice & Woodsmall, 1988). Phonological variables may provide insights in the diagnosis and treatment of delays in word learning. Children With Functional Phonological Delays The results of Gierut and colleagues (1999) indicate that lexical variables of target words do appear to influence the Table 1. Experimental results of the Gierut et al. (1999) study. Treatment condition Generalization results Frequent versus infrequent Frequent > infrequent Dense versus sparse Sparse > dense Frequent versus dense Frequent > dense Infrequent versus dense Infrequent > denseFrequent versus sparse Frequent = sparse Infrequent versus sparse Infrequent sparse Note. The symbol â€Å">† indicates â€Å"greater than† (e. g. , treatment of sounds in frequent words resulted in significantly greater generalization learning than infrequent words). The symbol â€Å"? † indicates â€Å"greater than or equivalent† (e. g. , treatment of sounds in infrequent words resulted in greater or equivalent generalization learning than sparse words). The symbol â€Å"=† indicates â€Å"equivalent† (e. g. , treatment of sounds in frequent words resulted in generalization learning that was equivalent to sparse words). 2 LANGUAGE, SPEECH, AND HEARING SERVICES IN SCHOOLS †¢ Vol. 33 †¢ 24–37 †¢ January 2002 process of sound change in treatment for children with functional phonological delays. When children were taught sounds in frequently occurring words, they made significant gains in their production accuracy of the target sound. In contrast, whe n children were taught sounds in words from dense neighborhoods, they failed to learn the treated sound. This suggests that phonological treatment should focus on frequent words in the language and avoid the use of words from dense neighborhoods. These results have direct linical implications for the kinds of words that should be selected for phonological treatment. A sample of treatment words is presented in Table 2. These words were adapted from the Morrisette and Gierut (in press) study and are consistent with procedures for the selection of treatment words in the Gierut et al. (1999) study. In this sample, the target fricative /f/ was taught in the word-initial position of frequent words in the language. Word frequency counts were obtained from KucUera and Francis (1967); neighborhood density values came from a computational database of 20,000 English words (Nusbaum et al. 1984). Frequency counts and density values are more generally available for clinical use through the online Neighborhood Database at http://www. artsci. wustl. edu/ ~msommers. Operational definitions for frequent versus infrequent and dense versus sparse neighborhoods were consistent with previous investigations of word frequency in phonological acquisition (e. g. , Morrisette, 1999). Frequent words were selected based on a word frequency count greater than 100. Thus, all of the words in Table 2 have a word frequency greater than 100. Further, because a word has both a frequency and a density, the words were alanced for neighborhood density. Half of the words came from dense neighborhoods, with 10 or more neighbors, and half of the words came from sparse neighborhoods, with fewer than 10 neighbors. Following from the Gierut et al. (1999) and Morrisette and Gierut (in press) studies, treated words were pictured on a computer screen and elicited through drill activities. Children attended three 1-hour treatment sessions each week and proceeded through two phases of treatment— imitat ion and spontaneous production. During the imitation phase, the child named the treated words following a clinician’s model.Imitation continued until the child achieved 75% production accuracy of the target sound across two consecutive sessions or until seven sessions were completed, whichever came first. During the spontaneous phase, the child named the treated words without a model. This phase continued until the child achieved 90% production accuracy of the target sound across three consecutive sessions or until twelve sessions were completed, whichever came first. Feedback related to the accuracy of the child’s production of the target sound was provided during both phases. Generalization learning for each child was monitored hrough spontaneous picture-naming tasks or probes. These probes were designed to sample the treated sound and other untreated sounds that were excluded from the child’s pretreatment sound inventory in untreated words and across contexts . Probes were administered throughout treatment, immediately following treatment, and at 2 weeks and 2 months posttreatment. Percentages of accuracy were then calculated and plotted as generalization learning curves. Thus, based on results from Gierut et al. (1999), it is predicted that phonological treatment using the frequent words illustrated in Table 2 would result in generalization f /f/ to untreated words and contexts. It should be noted that although half of the frequent words selected were from dense neighborhoods, the consistent variable was word frequency. Treatment programs consisting of words that are all from dense neighborhoods should be avoided. Based on the Gierut et al. (1999) study, treatment in words from dense neighborhoods resulted in minimal or no learning of the treated sound. Children With Specific Language Impairment The results of Storkel (2001) suggest that the phonological characteristics of novel words influence lexical acquisition. Thus, clinically, it may be important to consider honotactic probability in the diagnosis and treatment of delays in lexical acquisition in children with specific language impairment. These children may have difficulty learning phonotactic probability due to either perceptual processing deficits (Ellis Weismer & Hesketh, 1996, 1998) or limited lexical exemplars resulting from delays in language acquisition. Children with specific language impairment may fail to show a learning advantage for common over rare sound sequences. In support of this hypothesis, Storkel reported that increased vocabulary size was correlated with an increased learning advantage for ommon over rare sound sequences in children with ageappropriate lexical development. Delays in word learning and a decreased effect of phonotactic probability may go hand in hand. As a result, it may be necessary to examine the influence of phonotactic probability on word learning in this population. Unfortunately, standardized measures of vocabulary may not be sensitive to the factors that affect word learning because these tests examine the products of learning rather than the process itself. Therefore, clinicians may need to construct tasks that investigate the process of word learning to provide further insights into the factors hat contribute to a particular child’s poor word learning ability. Here, guidance is provided by past experimental Table 2. Sample of frequent treatment words. Word Word frequency Neighborhood density fine 161 28 full 230 15 feed 123 19 far 427 18 family 331 0 field 274 9 final 156 6 forward 115 0 Note. Neighborhood density counts in bold indicate words from dense neighborhoods. Storkel †¢ Morrisette: The Lexicon and Phonology 33 studies that have employed procedures that may be adapted for clinical use. In particular, the procedures used in Storkel (2001) may be appropriate. This multi-trial word earning paradigm was administered individually in one 30- minute session with a follow-up 10 -minute session to examine retention. Thus, the time commitment is similar to other standardized test protocols. Moreover, Storkel and Rogers (2000) successfully administered their word learning task to groups of students in a classroom. There are several important steps in constructing a measure of word learning: (a) identifying the stimuli to be learned, (b) exposing the child to the stimuli, and (c) measuring learning. Each step will be described in turn. Stimuli. Identification of the stimuli to be learned nvolves choosing nonwords or unknown real words and associating these with referents. In Storkel (2001), nonwords were selected as stimuli so that the phonological characteristics could be controlled. Specifically, all nonwords were composed of early acquired consonants that were articulated correctly by the participating children. This guarded against the influence of misarticulation on word learning (Leonard et al. , 1981; Schwartz & Leonard, 1982). Half of the nonwords were composed of common sound sequences and half were composed of rare sound sequences. Calculation of phonotactic probability is complex and equires access to a database; however, several published studies provide lists of common versus rare nonwords (e. g. , Jusczyk et al. , 1994; Storkel, 2001; Storkel & Rogers, 2000; Vitevitch & Luce, 1999) or words (e. g. , Vitevitch & Luce, 1999). The nonwords used in Storkel are shown in Table 3. The nonwords were paired with object referents to parallel real words. Novel objects were invented or adapted from published children’s stories. Objects were selected in pairs from the same semantic category. Each object from a semantic pair was associated with either a common or a rare sound sequence.In this way, semantic and conceptual factors were similar across the levels of phonotactic probability. A description of the objects is provided in Table 3. Exposure. For exposure, the nonword-object pairs were embedded in a story containing three st ory episodes. Pictures were adapted from children’s stories (Mayer, 1993) to show two main characters interacting with one another and with the nonsense objects. Semantically paired objects were shown in the same picture, with each being associated with a different main character. A story narrative was created to accompany the story pictures. The narrative is shown in the Appendix.Note that the exposure sentences were matched across common and rare sound sequences. For example, in the first episode, the exposure sentence for the common sound sequence /pin/ is â€Å"My favorite is the pin† and for the rare sound sequence /mOId/ is â€Å"My favorite is the mOId. † This matching of sentences was intended to equate syntactic factors across the levels of phonotactic probability. Another feature of the story narrative was that the number of times the nonwords were repeated varied across the episodes. That is, the children heard each nonword one time in Episode 1, but three times in Episodes 2 and 3.Given that children with specific language impairment reportedly need more exposures to learn novel words, it may be necessary to increase the number of repetitions of the nonwords for this clinical population. This could be accomplished by revising the story narrative or by having the child listen to the narrative twice. Measurement. Storkel (2001) measured learning after each story episode. Three measures of learning were obtained: referent identification, form identification, and picture naming. In the referent identification task, a nonword was presented and the child attempted to select he object from a field of three picture choices that included the target, the semantically related referent, and a semantically unrelated referent presented in the story. For the target nonword /pin/, the child saw pictures of both candy machines and a picture of one of the pets. In the form identification task, an object was presented and the child attempted to s elect the nonword from a field of three Table 3. The phonetic transcription of the common and rare sound sequences and their corresponding referents as invented or adapted from published children’s stories. Form characteristics Referent characteristicsCommon Rare Category Item 1 Item 2 w I t n aU b Toys punch toy cork gun (Geisel & Geisel, (Geisel & Geisel, 1958, p. 53) 1958, p. 45) h ? p g i m Horns orange trumpet yellow hand-held downward orientation tuba (Geisel & Geisel, (Geisel & Geisel, 1954, p. 50) 1954, p. 50) p i n m OI d Candy machines red candy + 1 chute blue candy + 2 chutes (invented) (invented) k oU f j eI p Pets green gerbil with antenna purple mouse-bat (DeBrunhoff, 1981, p. 132) (Mayer, 1992, p. 43) 34 LANGUAGE, SPEECH, AND HEARING SERVICES IN SCHOOLS †¢ Vol. 33 †¢ 24–37 †¢ January 2002 choices. The choices paralleled those of the referent dentification task. For example, the child was shown a picture of one of the candy machines and hea rd three possible names, /pin/, /mOId/, and /koUf/. As each nonword was played, the investigator pointed to one of three squares. The child then pointed to the square associated with his or her answer. In the picture-naming task, an object was presented and the child attempted to produce the nonword. Again, the child might see a picture of one of the candy machines, but this time be asked to produce the nonword associated with the object with no choices or prompting provided by the investigator.Following administration of these procedures, proportion correct can then be computed for common versus rare sound sequences at each test point (Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3) for each measure of learning (referent identification, form identification, picture naming). Difference scores can then be computed by subtracting proportion correct for rare sound sequences from proportion correct for common sound sequences. If there is an advantage of common over rare sound sequences, the resulting number will be positive. This would parallel the findings for typically developing children (Storkel, 2001; Storkel & Rogers, 2000).If there is no difference between common and rare sound sequences, then the resulting number will be zero. If there is a disadvantage of common relative to rare sound sequences, the resulting number will be negative. In either of these last two cases, the result would differ from those reported for typically developing children. This would suggest that one contributing factor to the child’s difficulties with word learning may be difficulty using phonological information to support word learning. CONCLUSION The findings reviewed support the hypothesis that the lexicon and phonology seem to continue to influence one nother even after the 50-word threshold has been surpassed. In particular, the relationship in preschool and school-age children appeared to be bidirectional in nature, with the lexicon influencing phonological acquisition and phonology influencing lexical acquisition. The tworepresentation model of word processing held promise in capturing this relationship. Thus, models of spoken word processing may hold potential for understanding the process of language acquisition. From a clinical perspective, this theoretical model may guide the diagnosis and treatment of phonological or lexical delays in children. ACKNOWLEDGMENTSThis research was supported in part by grants from the National Institutes of Health to Indiana University, Bloomington (DC01694; DC00012; DC04781). We appreciate the insightful comments and discussion provided by Judith A. Gierut, Jessica A. Barlow, and an anonymous reviewer on previous versions of this manuscript. REFERENCES Aslin, R. N. , Saffran, J. R. , & Newport, E. L. (1998). Computation of conditional probability statistics by 8-month-old infants. Psychological Science, 9, 321–324. Beckman, M. E. , & Edwards, J. (1999). Lexical frequency effects on young children’s imitative pr oductions. In M. B.Broe & J. B. Pierrehumbert (Eds. ), Papers in laboratory phonology V (pp. 208–218). Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Behrend, D. A. (1990). The development of verb concepts: Children’s use of verbs to label familiar and novel events. Child Development, 61, 681–696. Bloom, L. (1973). One word at a time: The use of single word utterances before syntax. The Hague: Mouton. Brown, G. D. (1984). A frequency count of 190,000 words in the London-Lund corpus of English conversation. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments and Computers, 16, 502–532. Carey, S. , & Bartlett, E. (1978). Acquiring a single new word.Papers and Reports on Child Language Development, 15, 17–29. Charles-Luce, J. , & Luce, P. A. (1990). Similarity neighbourhoods of words in young children’s lexicons. Journal of Child Language, 17, 205–215. Charles-Luce, J. , & Luce, P. A. (1995). An examination of similarity neighbourhoods in young childrenà ¢â‚¬â„¢s receptive vocabularies. Journal of Child Language, 22, 727–735. DeBrunhoff, L. (1981). Babar’s anniversary album. New York: Random House. Dell, G. S. (1990). Effects of frequency and vocabulary type on phonological speech errors. Language and Cognitive Processes, 5, 313–349. Dell, G. S. , & Reich, P.A. (1981). Stages in sentence production: An analysis of speech error data. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 20, 611–629. Dinnsen, D. A. , Chin, S. B. , Elbert, M. , & Powell, T. W. (1990). Some constraints on functionally disordered phonologies: Phonetic inventories and phonotactics. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 33, 28–37. Dollaghan, C. A. (1985). Child meets word: â€Å"Fast mapping† in preschool children. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 28, 449–454. Dollaghan, C. A. (1987). Fast mapping in normal and languageimpaired children. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 52, 218–222.Dollagha n, C. A. (1994). Children’s phonological neighbourhoods: Half empty or half full? Journal of Child Language, 21, 257–272. Dore, J. (1978). Conditions for the acquisition of speech acts. In I. Markova (Ed. ), The social context of language (pp. 87–111). New York: Wiley. Dyson, A. T. (1988). Phonetic inventories of 2- and 3-year-old children. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 53, 89–93. Ellis Weismer, S. , & Hesketh, L. J. (1996). Lexical learning by children with specific language impairment: Effects of linguistic input presented at varying speaking rates. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 39, 177–190.Ellis Weismer, S. , & Hesketh, L. J. (1998). The impact of emphatic stress on novel word learning by children with specific language impairment. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 41, 1444–1458. Storkel †¢ Morrisette: The Lexicon and Phonology 35 Ferguson, C. A. , & Farwell, C. B. (1975). Words and sounds in ear ly language acquisition. Language, 51, 419–439. Gathercole, S. E. , Frankish, C. R. , Pickering, S. J. , & Peaker, S. (1999). Phonotactic influences on short-term memory. 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Ignition Systems and Electrical Theory (Aircraft Powerplants) - Essay Example Several parts of the electrical theory of operation are difficult to understand. I least understood the ignition systems for gas turbine engines for the reason that the spark discharge of a turbine ignition system is superior and potent than the spark in an automobile engine (Tooley and Wyatt, 2009). A number of sparks are necessary to guarantee fast and consistent engine starts although a singular good spark will start combustion of the fuel/air combination in a turbine engines combustor. The different types of DC input turbine engine ignition exciter makes it difficult to know the required number of sparks. In addition, at times, the engine needs to be relit at some stage in an in-flight shutdown, and I found it difficult to understand exactly when the ignition systems job is complete. This part of the electric theory of operation requires mastery to ensure fluency of operations. The operation is also necessary when the next operational sequence of the aircrafts auxiliary power unit (APU) or turbine main engines starts once

Critical Thinking envi 423 2 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Critical Thinking envi 423 2 - Essay Example on the continent of Asia but has strong cultural and geographical ties with many parts of North Africa with aspects such as religion and language getting assimilated by them as a result. In ancient times the Middle East connected major trade routes between Asia and Europe through both land and seas. Caravans from India and China brought their goods to the busy markets of the Middle East for trading purposes. From there, the traders ferried the goods across the Mediterranean and into Europe to venture into other new markets. Other routes took traders across the red sea or down the coast of Africa with some traders penetrating further into the hinterlands. These bands of migrating people made up of traders and even conquerors, acted as agents of change in that they spread new and foreign ideas, religious traditions, inventions and different forms of achievements into the nations of Europe, Asia, and ultimately Africa. This movement of ideas, and or customs from one place to another con tributed to cultural diffusion (Arab Contributions to civilization). The Middle East is home to many different peoples with a variety of languages, religions and traditions. But Arabs whose major language is Arabic are the majority group in the Middle Eastern countries, but the Middle East is also home to other groups such as the Iranians, the Turks, and the Kurds. The major religions dominant in the region include Islam which is the leading religion by number of devout followers, followed by Christianity that also boosts of a substantial following, and lastly but not least Judaism. These are people who were born and raised in the desert or mountain wilderness and lived in tents or caves. They engaged in raising goats, sheep, donkeys, horses and camels. Bedouins consider the desert as their home, travelling in small bands or groups. Interestingly, the Bedouin are still living today as they have been living for thousands of years back, travelling from one oasis to another in their

The East India Decline in year 1833 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

The East India Decline in year 1833 - Essay Example This paper accounts for the decline of the East India Company in light of the political and commercial influences occurring in the Year 1833. It considers the fall in the East India Company with specific concern Charter Act 1833 It considers the fall in the East India Company with specific concern Charter Act 1833. The East India Decline in year 1833: Â § Introduction The East India Company was perhaps among the most powerful commercial organization that the world had ever witnessed. In its heyday it not only had monopoly on British trade with Far East and India but it was even responsible for the government of already vast Indian sub-continent. All of these factors meant that the British East India Company marked a greater historical event. The East India Company came into being in 1600 before collapsing completely in 1858 this was the phase when the Company was taken over under the direct control of Great British government. There are a number of reasons that contributed towards t he decline of the Company and eventually it being taken over. The decline of this megalomaniacal commercial entity was already destined by its own actions as far back as the mid-eighteenth century These include the short term factors such as the Indian Sepoy Mutiny as well as the other long term factors such as the internal mal administration of the Company (which had taken birth earlier than 1833), the ever increasing power of British government and to some lesser extent this can even be attributed to the change in public opinion over time. Charter Act 1833 Reform Act The period that had followed the enactment of the great Charter Act of 1833 witnessed very great change in England. (The Richest East India Merchant: The Life and Business of John Palmer of Calcutta, 1767-1836.) The industrial revolution had actually a greater impact in England. In the year 1830, the time when the Whigs came into super power in the wider political scenario of England, this opened a way of the triumph for the liberal principles. Consequently, the Reform Act was passed in the annual year 1832. (Reform Bill actually came into being by Parliament in June 1832. The Bill actually was directed against the political monopoly of the financial aristocracy and landed gave representatives of such industrial bourgeoisie access to the Parliament. However, the proletariat and petty bourgeoisie, the main forces towards the struggle for the reform had gained no electoral rights. ) The Reform Act with that the concepts of laissez faire and the rights of men were then duly emphasized. Introduction of Laissez Faire Laissez faire is a kind of style that is positive only in condition where the workers are very responsible and in the case of creative jobs where any person is thereby guided by his own aspirations. In such cases, less direction would be required so this style could have acted better. This was the kind of style where most people don't like someone looking over their shoulder of responsib ility, in that manner laissez faire style would promote a sense of trust in the workers. This style has more disadvantages this is due to the view that it is imposed as the lack of interest of the leader that leads to him being adopting this style. It just proves that there is an ineffective or poor management which makes the workers lose their sense of direction, purpose and focus. The disinterest of the leadership and management causes the workers to become less interested in their work and their dissatisfaction even increases. A laissez faire management might makes it easier for workers to do substandard job or to slack it off entirely but that usually cause a very high visibility problem to bring such workers to a lighter situation. Laissez faire, or a sort of hands off style of the governing, can lead to lots of corruption and anarchy. Many

Global Warming Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 4

Global Warming - Essay Example The solution is through the concerted efforts of various nations to help each other deal with this environmental trouble in one accord. There are international treaties or agreements that have been made by various nations to help lessen and remedy the damage done by global warming to the environment. Two international and multilateral agreements, the Montreal Protocol of 1987 and Kyoto Protocol of 1998, pay much attention to the damaging effect of world activities to the atmosphere. As cited by Morissette (1989): Its formulation was a response to a growing international consensus on the need to protect stratospheric ozone from depletion by CFCs. The Montreal Protocol is a landmark agreement in that it is the first international treaty for mitigating a global atmospheric problem before serious environmental impacts have been conclusively detected. Upon the agreement of the various countries that participated in the formation and agreement to the Montreal Protocol, the battle against global warming further developed as time went by, and with new concerns. This eventually led to a new agreement known as the Kyoto Protocol.   The  Kyoto Protocol of 1998  is an international treaty deliberated to communicate nations collectively to decrease  global warming,  and to deal with the effects of temperature increases that are inevitable after more than a century of heavy industrialization. Manne and Richels (1998) exposited that this was â€Å"to reduce their aggregate anthropogenic carbon dioxide equivalent emissions by at least 5 percent below 1990 levels in the commitment period 2008 to 2012.† (p.2). The nations that approve of the Kyoto Protocol concur to decrease emissions of six greenhouse gases that increase the problems of global warming. These nations are also permitted to utilize emissions trading to reach their obligations if they maintain or increase their greenhouse gas emissions. All of these activities

Ernest hemingway Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Ernest hemingway - Research Paper Example The paper in which Hemingway worked offered reporters the directions to follow to improve their writing: â€Å"Use short sentences. Use short first paragraphs. Use vigorous English. Be positive, not negative† (cited in Tyler 15). This includes the distance, reflected in a deliberately emotionless manner of narration, the replacement of description by the show to let the reader evaluate his reading, the functionality and thingness of the prose. Every detail fixes the impression of an event in the story or interlude. This also includes character comparisons, unambiguous and even deliberately limited. Hemingway’s Style Like every great writer, he sought and found his own way in literature. One of his main goals was clarity and brevity of expression; he wanted â€Å"to strip language clean, to lay it bare down to the bone† (cited in Bloom 74). Hemingway’s famous short and exact phrase became a subject of controversy in literature – whether the understat ement really exists. According to Hemingway, it does. It is based on the deep layers of collective consciousness, on the universal categories of culture, which is raised by the artist in his work and which are enshrined in the customs, ceremonies, various forms of folk festivals, folk subjects of peoples of the world. In those early years, Hemingway also discovered his â€Å"dialogue† – his characters are exchanging small phrases, accidentally broken, and the reader feels behind these words, something significant and hidden in the mind, something that cannot be expressed directly. All of Hemingway’s works were interpreted and considered in terms of â€Å"being lost†, when the main thing is a search for identity, for example, injured by war, which lost its ideals and its place in the world. Therefore, the object of Hemingway’s study was the tragedy of his contemporaries, thrown into the brutal world of wars, murders and violence, alienation of peopl e from one another. His collections of short stories offer the best samples of psychological narration. This paper considers three stories from two collections: The Killers (1927), Hills Like White Elephants (1927), and The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1936). The works of this period defined the main features of Hemingway’s style of and the main type of his characters. All of them are deeply sensitive and really suffering people. However, centuries old Anglo-Saxon and even sporty self-control causes them to talk quietly, biting one’s lip. His characters can be considered as hard-boiled, though some argue that: T. S. Eliot called Hemingway â€Å"the writer of tender sentiment, and true sentiment† (cited in Meyers 19). Hemingway’s dialogue is deliberately sloppy and seemingly insignificant. This is just a mask, sometimes hiding the grimace of pain, which in fact must not be shown to others. And anyway, why should he speak of self-evident things? Dialogue, accordin g to Hemingway, is an easy thing for him, but it would be wrong to assume that this is just a naturalistic account of everyday conversations. No, this is a special kind of seemingly artless, but strictly deliberate selection and sharpening. A short chain of not interconnected phrases performs the basic task – to show the decaying ties of shifted and fragmented world, as it is directly perceived by a troubled mind, not, as it is organized later by a cool mind and fit into the traditional forms. The way of expressing information without any explanation of the

Caregiver stress Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Caregiver stress - Research Paper Example The median age is 63 years and the mode is 76 years. The figure below shows the distribution of caregiver age in the sample. Patient Gender: Out of the valid sample of 348, 130 patients are male and 218 female. That is 37.4% of the sample is males and 62.6% females Caregiver Gender: Out of the valid sample of 348, 88 patients are male and 260 female. That is 25.3% of the sample is males and 74.7% females Ethnicity: White non-Hispanics are the largest group by ethnicity constituting 42.3% of the sample. Hispanic ethnicity is the second largest group constituting 32.5% of the sample and the rest are African Americans constituting the remaining 25.3% of the sample. Caregiver Education The average caregiver education is 13.1 years. The range is 20 years from a minimum 3 years to a maximum of 20 years of education. Household Income For the household income, the dataset was not complete and data labels were not set for all ordinal values. Of all the data points, only 170 had disappoints fo r which the ordinal values were described in the data set. For the available dataset details, the maximum frequency was observed for the 2000-2300 income group and greater than 2400 income group with a frequency of 31 data points each. Hypothesis test 1: Religious patients complain less about somatic illnesses In order to test this hypothesis, we can compare the means for total somatic illness complaints observed for the religious patients (any level of being religious – from somewhat religious to very religious) and for non-religious patents. The corresponding data in the sample would be the data for â€Å"Somatic Complaints Total† (SCT). Out of the sample of 349, 5 cases are excluded in the analysis. Two of these are excluded because there is no data available and the remaining three because the data for their religiousness is not rightly captured in the database. It is captured as 2.56, which is not related to any ordinal assignment of data. The following table summ arizes the mean SCT for different groups of patients based on their religiousness. We can see whether there is any difference in means of complaints by the different patients to ascertain whether religious people complain less or not. This can be done using 2 statistical tests: the two-sample t-test and the one way Anova test. Two-sample t-test where we group all the religious people as one and â€Å"not at all religious† people as the second group to see whether not at all religious people complain more. Also, we can now consider two groups of samples, one including people who are not at all religious and second of people who are religious, somewhat religious, or very religious. The table for means for these groups is as below. =2) is people who are religious. These notations are due to nature of data in the dataset. Now, we need to test whether the group of religious people complain less about somatic illness. Hypothesis testing by Two-sample t-test for independent variable s Let  µr denote the observed mean for religious group and  µn denote the mean for not at all religious group. So, our Null hypothesis:  µr =  µnr The sig. value, which is the p-value for the test is 0.578. This is too high compared to a 0.05 or 0.10 p-value which would have been for 95% confidence or 90% confidence level. So, we must reject the null hypothesis and accept the alternative hypothesis that religious people do NOT complain less abo

The First Nations of British Columbias South Coast Essay

The First Nations of British Columbias South Coast - Essay Example There are other issues discussed such as the historic Indian cultures that were identified by explorers (VirtualMuseum.Ca, 2008). Nevertheless, unlike the Southwest, the place lacked intensive archaeology that would be stimulated by the stone ruins; instead, there were potlatches, totem poles, masks, which depicted the prehistoric cultures attributed to clam shells. On the other hand, an analysis of the Blackman’s â€Å"Facing the Future, Envisioning the Past† (1990) explains the way contemporary Northwest Coast art was perceived as a result of revival that had commenced in 1960s. In fact, the Blackman (1990) argues that the bulk of contemporary art was focused on commercial market, given that the buyers were influenced by the meaning. Nevertheless, it is significant to acknowledge that historical archival photographs from the Northwest Coast are substantial resources to facilitate the analysis of the North coast art and material culture. Blackman offers a fascinating illustration of the Northwest Coast Art through publication of historical and contemporary photographs, research slides of museum collection piece. Chapter two focuses on the form in Northwest Coast Indian art, whereby the Holm (1983) explains that the styles identified in this area were partially derived from two-dimensional space. These entail a division of continuous process, which was attributed to both positive and negative from of silhouette and sculptures on the Northwest Coast. Moreover, the chapter indicates that Northwest was known for three-dimensional sculptural art and concept. Nevertheless, there chapter offers a description of the fundamental distinction between arts of various cultural groups on the Coast, and an illustration of the exemplary examples through a presentation of some of the early pieces (Holm, 1983). In fact, some of these pieces can be accessed via websites, which are hosted by leading

University education free of charge Essay Example for Free

University education free of charge Essay A cliche states that if you think education is expensive, try ignorance. The suggestion of free education is a noble policy that has more demerits than merits. A policy of free education creates at least three problems. These are; funding, moral hazards and limiting the roles of universities. A policy of free education for all students creates a problem of funding for universities. This is especially true in the current economic climate. The government cannot afford to soley fund universities. Thus, free education creates more economic problems for the government. For instance, if a state like California adopts such a policy for Californias public universities, a substianial part of government revenue would go into funding universities leaving little room for the government to undertake other services. Second, a policy of free education creates a moral hazard because students have no incentive to invest in their education. Individuals are more likely to commit to something that requires some sacrifice on their part. Free education demands no sacrifice. Factors such as loans and family sponsorship encourage a student to invest his education by learning because there is some one they are answerable to. However, if free education is provided to all students without any conditions, the policy would be abused. Some students may choose not to attend classes for example. Third, a policy of free education limits the role of universities as citadels of knowledge especially in the area of research. Universities receive funds and grants to undertake resarch and development from the government and private sector. Howver, if free education is provided for all students at the tertiary level, research may be limited because funds received may likely go to overhead costs such as maintenance of infrastructure and salaries. Nevertheless, the importance of education at all levels cannot be understated. The recommendation that free education should be provided for all students has a merit because education has positive consequences for a society. Holding all other factors constant, an educated society should be a prosperous and well developed one. Thus, a government may benefit from  implementing a policy of free education at the tertiary level. This is because all things being equal, the students would contribute towards the development of the society. Thus, a policy of free education may be adopted for deserving students or on a needs basis with conditions such as having a certain GPA and public service attached to it.

Australian National Identity Essay Example for Free

Australian National Identity Essay According to Zimmermann there are as many legal systems as there are national states. Every country has its own unique legal system. However, we can allocate among them three main legal systems. These are: Civil Law, Common Law and Islamic Law. Civil and Common Laws are the most influential legal systems in the world, especially in its Western part. All three of these legal systems have existed and developed for many centuries. Further will follow the description of the historically appearance of each legal system separately. Civil legal system is considered to be the oldest and the most widespread one. It also known as Continental, Roman or Romano-Germanic law. In general, Roman law consists of a combination of three main subtraditions such as Roman Civil Law, Canon Law and Commercial Law. The development of Roman Law cover more than a thousand year period, starting from the publication of the law of the XII Tables in Rome (450 B. C. ) and the code of Emperor Justinian I Corpus Juris Civilic , which was created in period from 529 – 534 A. D and later developed by medieval legal scholars. Countries with Civil legal system: France, Germany, Japan, Russia and Uzbekistan. The Common law evolved in England since 11th century after being conquered by the Normans in 1066 A. D.. Afterwards William I the Conqueror created central government and began to standardize the law by combining the best of Anglo-Saxon law with Norman Law which led to a creation of English Common Law. â€Å"William’s enduring legacy was the creation of highly centralized legal system†. [1] (Kritzer, H, M, 2002). The case law originally appeared when the King understood, that many cases, which he had to solve were similar and needed standardization. During the 14th century legal decisions on the common law started providing precedents for the judges to follow. In 1769 Sir William Blackstone wrote Commentaries on the Laws of England, which became the basics of the most common law statutes. These are countries with common legal system: England, United States of America, Australia, Canada, Pakistan, and India. The Islamic Law is called Sharia. The primary sources of Islamic Law are Qur’an and Sunnah. Sharia covers all aspects of every day life of Muslims, including such things as: economics, family and social issues. The legal systems in the World are divided into three main groups: Common, Civil and Islamic legal system, as it was discussed earlier. According to Zweigert, K. and Kotz, H. there are five main differences this two legal systems can be compared: historical background, legal investigation, legal institutions, the sources of law and last one is its ideology. Civil and Common legal systems have both similarities and differences. The main difference between these two legal systems is that common law in England was based on customs, the court existed a long time before there were any written laws. In contrast, the Civil Law developed from ancient Roman Law of Justinian I The second difference is the role of sources of law. At present time there are such sources of law as codes, legislation, customs, judicial decisions (case law), equity and doctrinal writing. Each legal system has several sources from those which were mentioned above. For instance, as De Cruz (2007) points out â€Å"the main sources of law in Civil law countries are the codes, enacted law, doctrinal writing, custom and decided cases. †[2] Civil legal system is codified statutory system, where the main principles and rules are stated in codes. This means that codes and statutes are valued higher and case law is considered just as a secondary source of law. On the other hand the Common law system is uncodified, â€Å"governed by case law and statutes play only an auxiliary role to precedents established by courts†[3](Kritzer, H M, 2002). Equity and case law are accepted sources of law in Common law countries. They do not exist in Civil law jurisdiction. Equity is understood not only as justice but is also considered as a set of legal principles, which are applied in Common legal system. Equity deals with â€Å"situations by applying notions of good sense and fairness†. [4] (Elliott, C Quinn, F, 1996). The law is dominantly created by judge and often without checking the legislation, only by drawing analogy the previous similar cases. This moment shows the difference of the legislators in civil law and in common law. In the civil law, judges should apply the law, which was created by the legislator, on the basis of separation of powers. On the other hand, in common law the judge is given the power to create the law. Another difference between civil and common law system is the force of precedents. In civil law system, the court decides the particular cases according to the legislation and legal norms. But in the common law the courts are supposed not only to solve the cases, but also give an example of how similar cases have to be solved in the future. This means, that decisions, which are made by higher level courts in a specific areas are binding the lower ones to follow them. This makes the court in the common law the basis of legislation. Court procedures are also differentiating in both civil and common legal systems. We all know that at the court two parties cooperate by presenting their evidence to each other. Civil legal system has an inquisitorial procedure. In inquisitorial procedure the judge is the active person, who also takes more investigative role. Common law countries use the accusatorial system, which is also known as the adversary procedure. † The common law principle which places the responsibility for collecting and presenting evidence on the party who seeks to introduce that evidence. †[5] (Woodley, M, 2005). In accusatorial procedure judge is a passive person in comparison with the inquisitorial procedure. Moreover, the last word in court procedure (Civil legal system) has the defendant, whereas in Common law the last world has the prosecutor. Next difference would be legal institutions. It can be seen on the following examples. Trust is a branch of law which exist in Common law countries, significantly developed in England. It regulates relationship between trust and trustee. Trust is the person who delegates their ownership, whereas trustee is the person who owns trusts’ proprieties due to many reasons (e.g. underage) The principle of presumption of innocence works differently in Common and Civil law in criminal cases. In Common law it means that a person is innocent until his gilt is proven by the prosecutor and by the facts he presents. On the other hand in civil legal system, it suggests that a person is found to be guilty until he proved that he is innocent. Convergence theory is a system, when one particular country has a mixed legal system. Mixed jurisdiction in recent time, became a subject of huge debates and discussions in European Union. This is happening because, EU has united many countries with different legal systems under a single legislation. So now EU is becoming an area of convergence, where two major legal systems, civil legal system of the continental Europe and common legal system of England, are getting mixed with each other. But this kind of situation with the mixed jurisdictions did not occur only in European Union. Louisiana and Quebec are examples of mixed jurisdiction systems. Before being a part of USA, Louisiana was a French colony since 1731 till its cession to Spain in 1763. In this period of time Louisiana had a French legal system. But after its cession, French law was replaced by Spanish Law. The Spanish law included â€Å"Nueva Recopilacion de Castilla (1567) and the Recopilacion de Leyes de los Reinos de las Indias (a rearrangement of major legal texts up to 1680), and, in default of a specific rule in a later enactment, the Siete Partidas (a compilation of laws, based on the Justinian compilation and the doctrine of the Glossators, made under King Alfonso X in 1265 and formally enacted under King Alfonso XI in 1348)† (Tetley,W., 2000). On 20 December of 1803 Louisiana became part of United States of America. USA had a common law legal system. The mixture of common and civil law systems lead to a misinterpretation of laws, because all other codes were written in different languages. That is why, Edward Livingston in 1808 created a â€Å"Louisiana civil code†, which was approved by the major advocates of common law. In 1825 the Louisiana civil code was modified by adding missing force and was organized similarly with French Civil Code. The third civil code was evolved in 1870. The complete edition of all three codes was published in 1938. Starting from 1976 Louisiana’s State University is now responsible for the Louisiana civil code. Another striking example of the mixed of jurisdictions, would be Quebec. For a long time before being ceded by the Great Britain, Quebec was the part of France, and called le Canada. This means that in Quebec was under French Civil Legal system. After cession with Great Britain, the legal systems got mixed, and this lead to a confusion of the applicable law. The French population boycotted the new English law. To make some clarifications were made by creating a Quebec Act 1774, which combined both civil and common legal systems. In 1791 The Constitutional act divided Quebec into Upper Canada, with common law system and Lower Canada with civil law. Nowadays Canada still has a mixed jurisdiction The mixed jurisdiction is, in my opinion, a myth, but many countries are trying to reach the convergence between these two main legal systems. As I stated before, some countries already have mixed jurisdiction, but this mixture often leads to some misunderstandings and confusions to the legal authorities of the country. Convergence theory is a myth, but as long as developed countries will try to mix both of these legal systems, it can become reality. Bibliography Books: 1. De Cruz, P. , (1999). Comparative law in a changing world. 2nd ed. GB: Cavendish Publishing Ltd. 2. Elliott, C Quinn, F. , (1996). English legal system. New York: Addison Wesley Longman 3. Tetley, W. , (2000). Mixed jurisdiction: Common Law vs. Civil Law (Codified and Uncodified). USA: Louisiana Law Review. 4. Woodley, M. , (2005). Osborn’s Concise law dictionary. 10th ed. London : Sweet Maxwell 5. Kritzer, H M, (2002). Legal systems of the world. California : ABC-CLIO 6. Zweigert, K. and Kotz, H. , (1998). An introduction to comparative law. 3rd ed. New York: Oxford University Press. Internet Sources: 1. Pejovic, C. ,(2001). Civil Law and Common Law: Two different paths leading to the same goal. [online] Available from: [Accessed 17 March 2009]. 2. Radford University. Description and History of Common Law [online]. Available from: http://www. runet. edu/~junnever/law/commonlaw. htm [Accessed 18 March 2009]. 3. Common Law vs. Civil Law. [online] Available from: [Accessed 17 March 2009] 4. Rial, J. S. , (2002). Origins of Common Law. [online] Available from: [Accessed 17 March 2009] 5. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, (2007). Corpus Juris Civilic. [online] Columbia University Press. Available from: http://www. infoplease. com/ce6/society/A0813641. html [Accessed 16 March 2009]. 6. Law. com Dictionary. Common Law. [online]. Available from: http://dictionary. law. com/definition2. asp? selected=248 [Accessed 17 March 2009] [1] Kritzer, H M, 2002, Legal systems of the world, volume I A-D, ABC-CLIO, California. [2] De Cruz, P, 2007, Comparative law in a changing world, 3d edn, Routledge-Cavendish, Oxon. [3] Kritzer, H M, 2002, Legal systems of the world, volume I A-D, ABC-CLIO, California. [4] Elliott, C Quinn, F, 1996, English legal system, Addison Wesley Longman, New York. [5] Woodley, M, 2005, Osborn’s Concise law dictionary, 10th edn, Sweet Maxwell, London.