This Faper discusses the results of part of an ongoing project studying an aspect of real world l... more This Faper discusses the results of part of an ongoing project studying an aspect of real world language usage, the comprehension of standard jury instructions. Problems in the comprehension cf these instructions include the memory load that they impose, the fact that most instructions are read only once, and tbe fact that instructions are written in legal language, with vocabulary, syntax and semantic usage unfamiliar to the average juror. The purpose of the study is to isolate the lexical, grammatical, semantic and pragmatic factors which impede comprehension. The study attempts to get at what jurors actually comprehend and remember when they hear a jury instruction, by having them paraphrase jury instructions. Thirty-five jurors called for jury duty in Prince George's County, Maryland, bat who had as yet not served, 111;?,re divided into four groups and presented on a one-to-one * *
Legal language is discussed in the context of concern about the comprehensibility of consumer doc... more Legal language is discussed in the context of concern about the comprehensibility of consumer documents and the trend toward simplification of the language used in these documents. Specific features of legal language and its functions within the legal community and society are identified. As a primary tool of the legal profession, legal language is viewed as carrying a substantial social and linguistic burden. In addition, it is seen as serving separating, unifying, and prestige functions. It is proposed that these two factors explain why attempts at simplification are likely to be resisted. Legal language appears to have some features of a changing, living dialect, and while %..raditional scholars have focused only on legal vocabulary, research has demonstrated an evolution of legal terms through litigation and appeal that is analogous to the historical development of ordinary English. Recent research suggests that there is more to legal language than lexicon. Some of the attempts to simplify legal language and some research studies on the comprehension o: non-legal language are examined for the insights they provide into linguistic barriers to comprehension of legal language. Areas of research are identified. (Author/MSE) * *
... Login to save citations to My List. Citation. Database: PsycINFO. [Journal Article]. Psycholi... more ... Login to save citations to My List. Citation. Database: PsycINFO. [Journal Article]. Psycholinguistic and educational implications of deafness. Bonvillian, John D.; Charrow, Veda R.; Nelson, Keith E. Human Development, Vol 16(5), 1973, 321-345. doi: 10.1159/000271286. Abstract ...
... The Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) was administered to 13 deaf adolescents wit... more ... The Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) was administered to 13 deaf adolescents with deaf parents and to 13 deaf adolescents with hearing parents. ... Subjects with deaf parents scored significantly higher than subjects with hearing parents on all but one measure. ...
There has been a growing concern in recent years regarding the inability of lay persons to unders... more There has been a growing concern in recent years regarding the inability of lay persons to understand legal language. This concern has generated a movement to rewrite legal documents in "plain English." At both the federal and state levels, laws have been enacted and regulations issued, requiring that automobile insurance policies, warranties, and other legal instruments be written in language that is clear and understandable to the average person. Many of these efforts have been greeted with loud *1307 praise and with confidence that rewriting will alleviate all comprehension problems.
The Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) was administered to 26 deaf students (approxima... more The Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) was administered to 26 deaf students (approximately 18 years of age) to determine (1) whether deaf children of deaf parents (DP),, as users of American Sign Language and as possessors of a shared code, would outperform deaf children of hearing parents (HP); (2) whether the performance of DP subjects, if they do learn English as a second language, would resemble the performance of hearing, foreign studentson their item-by-item performance; and (3) whether the performance of DP subjects on the TOEFL test and on the Stanford Achievement Test (SAT) would be less related than the performance of HP subjects. Results showed that the DP group was superior to the HP group of three of the four TOEFL subtests and on two SAT subtests and that the parentage variable accounted for 53 percent of the variance in total test scores. The item-by-item comparisons showed the DP group performance to more like that of the hearing, foreign students than was the performance of the HP group. Whereas the correlations of the Paragraph Meaning SAT subtest scores with the TOEFL scores failed to discriminate between the DP and HP subjects; the DP subjects' scores correlated better than HP group scores on the Language subtest of the SAT. (HOD)
Efforts to simplify language used in consumer documents come from the consumer movement and a pub... more Efforts to simplify language used in consumer documents come from the consumer movement and a public disillusioned with big business and government. Even before President Carter's 1978 executive order mandating simplification in government regulations, some agencies were revising regulations for clarity. However, these efforts were based on too little knowledge of language complexity.
... The Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) was administered to 13 deaf adolescents wit... more ... The Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) was administered to 13 deaf adolescents with deaf parents and to 13 deaf adolescents with hearing parents. ... Subjects with deaf parents scored significantly higher than subjects with hearing parents on all but one measure. ...
... Login to save citations to My List. Citation. Database: PsycINFO. [Journal Article]. Psycholi... more ... Login to save citations to My List. Citation. Database: PsycINFO. [Journal Article]. Psycholinguistic and educational implications of deafness. Bonvillian, John D.; Charrow, Veda R.; Nelson, Keith E. Human Development, Vol 16(5), 1973, 321-345. doi: 10.1159/000271286. Abstract ...
This Faper discusses the results of part of an ongoing project studying an aspect of real world l... more This Faper discusses the results of part of an ongoing project studying an aspect of real world language usage, the comprehension of standard jury instructions. Problems in the comprehension cf these instructions include the memory load that they impose, the fact that most instructions are read only once, and tbe fact that instructions are written in legal language, with vocabulary, syntax and semantic usage unfamiliar to the average juror. The purpose of the study is to isolate the lexical, grammatical, semantic and pragmatic factors which impede comprehension. The study attempts to get at what jurors actually comprehend and remember when they hear a jury instruction, by having them paraphrase jury instructions. Thirty-five jurors called for jury duty in Prince George's County, Maryland, bat who had as yet not served, 111;?,re divided into four groups and presented on a one-to-one * *
Legal language is discussed in the context of concern about the comprehensibility of consumer doc... more Legal language is discussed in the context of concern about the comprehensibility of consumer documents and the trend toward simplification of the language used in these documents. Specific features of legal language and its functions within the legal community and society are identified. As a primary tool of the legal profession, legal language is viewed as carrying a substantial social and linguistic burden. In addition, it is seen as serving separating, unifying, and prestige functions. It is proposed that these two factors explain why attempts at simplification are likely to be resisted. Legal language appears to have some features of a changing, living dialect, and while %..raditional scholars have focused only on legal vocabulary, research has demonstrated an evolution of legal terms through litigation and appeal that is analogous to the historical development of ordinary English. Recent research suggests that there is more to legal language than lexicon. Some of the attempts to simplify legal language and some research studies on the comprehension o: non-legal language are examined for the insights they provide into linguistic barriers to comprehension of legal language. Areas of research are identified. (Author/MSE) * *
... Login to save citations to My List. Citation. Database: PsycINFO. [Journal Article]. Psycholi... more ... Login to save citations to My List. Citation. Database: PsycINFO. [Journal Article]. Psycholinguistic and educational implications of deafness. Bonvillian, John D.; Charrow, Veda R.; Nelson, Keith E. Human Development, Vol 16(5), 1973, 321-345. doi: 10.1159/000271286. Abstract ...
... The Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) was administered to 13 deaf adolescents wit... more ... The Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) was administered to 13 deaf adolescents with deaf parents and to 13 deaf adolescents with hearing parents. ... Subjects with deaf parents scored significantly higher than subjects with hearing parents on all but one measure. ...
There has been a growing concern in recent years regarding the inability of lay persons to unders... more There has been a growing concern in recent years regarding the inability of lay persons to understand legal language. This concern has generated a movement to rewrite legal documents in "plain English." At both the federal and state levels, laws have been enacted and regulations issued, requiring that automobile insurance policies, warranties, and other legal instruments be written in language that is clear and understandable to the average person. Many of these efforts have been greeted with loud *1307 praise and with confidence that rewriting will alleviate all comprehension problems.
The Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) was administered to 26 deaf students (approxima... more The Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) was administered to 26 deaf students (approximately 18 years of age) to determine (1) whether deaf children of deaf parents (DP),, as users of American Sign Language and as possessors of a shared code, would outperform deaf children of hearing parents (HP); (2) whether the performance of DP subjects, if they do learn English as a second language, would resemble the performance of hearing, foreign studentson their item-by-item performance; and (3) whether the performance of DP subjects on the TOEFL test and on the Stanford Achievement Test (SAT) would be less related than the performance of HP subjects. Results showed that the DP group was superior to the HP group of three of the four TOEFL subtests and on two SAT subtests and that the parentage variable accounted for 53 percent of the variance in total test scores. The item-by-item comparisons showed the DP group performance to more like that of the hearing, foreign students than was the performance of the HP group. Whereas the correlations of the Paragraph Meaning SAT subtest scores with the TOEFL scores failed to discriminate between the DP and HP subjects; the DP subjects' scores correlated better than HP group scores on the Language subtest of the SAT. (HOD)
Efforts to simplify language used in consumer documents come from the consumer movement and a pub... more Efforts to simplify language used in consumer documents come from the consumer movement and a public disillusioned with big business and government. Even before President Carter's 1978 executive order mandating simplification in government regulations, some agencies were revising regulations for clarity. However, these efforts were based on too little knowledge of language complexity.
... The Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) was administered to 13 deaf adolescents wit... more ... The Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) was administered to 13 deaf adolescents with deaf parents and to 13 deaf adolescents with hearing parents. ... Subjects with deaf parents scored significantly higher than subjects with hearing parents on all but one measure. ...
... Login to save citations to My List. Citation. Database: PsycINFO. [Journal Article]. Psycholi... more ... Login to save citations to My List. Citation. Database: PsycINFO. [Journal Article]. Psycholinguistic and educational implications of deafness. Bonvillian, John D.; Charrow, Veda R.; Nelson, Keith E. Human Development, Vol 16(5), 1973, 321-345. doi: 10.1159/000271286. Abstract ...
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