“The number of words a person understands when they are heard in speech; also, hearing vocabulary, sometimes called ‘receptive vocabulary.'”
Excerpted from: Turkington, Carol, and Joseph R. Harris, PhD. The Encyclopedia of Learning Disabilities. New York: Facts on File, 2006.
“The concept of a system appears throughout the social and natural sciences and has generated a body of literature of its own (‘general systems theory’). A system is any pattern of relationships between elements, and is regarded as having emergent properties of its own, over an above the properties of its elements. The system is seen as possessing an inherent tendency towards equilibrium and the analysis of systems is the analysis of mechanisms which maintain equilibrium, both internally and externally, in relation to other systems.
The functionalism of Talcott Parsons offers the fullest employment of systems theory in sociology (see especially The Social System, 1951). In Parsonsonian terms, social system can refer to a stable relationship between two actors, to societies as a whole, to systems of societies, or indeed any level between these. All are analyzed principally in terms of their so-called cybernetic aspects; that is, as systems of information exchange and control, where equilibrium is maintained through symbolic exchanges with other systems across boundaries, In economic systems, for example, the exchange is not usually direct but mediated by money. Power is the medium of exchange in political systems.
More recently Anthony Giddens, (Central Problems in Social Theory, 1979) has criticized this conception of the social system on the grounds that systems do not possess emergent properties over and above the social actors who comprise them, but are rather produced and reproduced by structured and routine social practices. The systematic properties of social systems thus stem from the nature of social action rather than the system itself.”
Excerpted from: Matthews, Gordon, ed. Oxford Dictionary of Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
“Research shows that depth of vocabulary matters to reading comprehension. Children identified as having difficulty in reading comprehension (but who can decode well) do not have the depth of word knowledge that typical readers do. When asked to provide a word definition, they provide fewer attributes. When asked to produce examples of categories (“name as many flowers as you can) they produce fewer. They have a harder time describing the meaning of figurative language, like the expression ‘a pat on the back.’ They are slower and more error-prone in judging if two words are synonyms, although they have no problem making a rhyming judgement.”
Excerpted from: Willingham, Daniel T. The Reading Mind: A Cognitive Approach to Understanding How the Mind Reads. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2017.
While I realize that it’s not most people’s idea of fun, I like to spend time in cemeteries. I appreciate funerary art. I enjoy the solemnity and quiet of cemeteries. I benefit from the perspective cemeteries provide. And, since the advent of the smartphone, I enjoy using cemeteries as a primary source in historical research. One can learn a lot about the demographics of a town by its deceased citizens.
So, I am pleased to see that my pal Walter Wallace, in Springfield, Vermont, has worked with a local cable access production company to offer this video on Puritan symbolism on gravestones at the Rockingham Meeting House, in Rockingham Vermont, where he is a docent. Incidentally, this meeting house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008.
Great work, Walter!
“He who opens a school door, closes a prison.”
Victor Hugo (1802-1885)
Excerpted from: Howe, Randy, ed. The Quotable Teacher. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2003.
“A word that does not change its form through inflection and does not fit easily into the established system of the parts of speech. Among individual words commonly so classed are the negative particle not (and its contraction n’t), the infinitive particle to (to go; to run), the imperative particles do, don’t (Do tell me; Don’t tell me) and let, let’s (Let me see now; Let’s go). There is also a set of adverbial and prepositional particles that combine with verbs to form phrasal verbs (out in look out; up in turn up) and prepositional verbs (at in get at; for in care for). The term pragmatic particle is sometimes used for words that play a role in maintaining discourse and are also known as fillers and discourse markers: oh, ah, well, yes, no, actually, anyway.”
Excerpted from: McArthur, Tom. The Oxford Concise Companion to the English Language. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
“Socialization is the process by which we learn to become members of society, both by internalizing the norms and values of society, and also by learning to perform our social roles (as worker, friend, citizen, and so forth).
There is an ongoing dispute about the relative importance of nature versus nurture (or hereditary and environment) in human development. A related debate concerns the extent to which humans are over-socialized. Are humans ruled by their social manners and role-playing skills to the extent that basic human instincts are eradicated? This debate pits the psychological perspective of Freud, which views socialization as working against our natural inclinations and drives, against the functionalist perspective that sees socialization as essential for the integration of society. Recent studies have focused on social class differences in socialization, some of which have to do with language (see B. Bernstein, Class, Codes, and Control, 1971), others . of which are more concerned with differences in value orientation (see M. Kohn, Class and Conformity, 1969).
Socialization is no longer regarded as the exclusive preserve of childhood, with the primary agents being the family and school. It is now recognized that socialization continues throughout the life-course. It is also recognized that socialization is not simply a one-way process, in which individuals learn how to fit into society, since people may also redefine their social roles and obligations. Any understanding of socialization must therefore take account of how the process relates to social change. In this sense, some schools of sociological theory imply an allegedly ‘over-socialized conception of man in society,’ in that they overstate the extent to which values are internalized and action is normative in orientation–a charge often leveled, for example, against normative functionalism (See D. Wrong, ‘The Oversocialized Conception of Man,’ American Sociological Review, 1961).”
Excerpted from: Matthews, Gordon, ed. Oxford Dictionary of Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
“1. The words in a text, usually a noun phrase, to which a pronoun or other grammatical unit refers back. Cook is the antecedent of him in: ‘In 1772. Cook began his second voyage, which took him further south than he had ever been.’ Similarly, his second voyage is the antecedent of which. With impersonal it, this, that, which, the antecedent may be a whole clause or paragraph, as in: ‘Might not the coast of New South Wales provide and armed haven? To some people this looked good on paper, but there is no hard evidence that it did so to William Pitt or his ministers.’ Despite the implications of the name, an antecedent can follow rather than precede: ‘For his first Pacific voyage, Cook had no chronometer.’ 2. In logic, the conditional element in a proposition. In If they did that, they deserve our respect, the antecedent is they did that.”
Excerpted from: McArthur, Tom. The Oxford Concise Companion to the English Language. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
“Demonstrative: A term used in association with pronouns and determiners as an adjective and a noun: a demonstrative pronoun; three demonstratives in one sentence. A demonstrative usage indicates relationships and locations, such as between this (near the speaker and perhaps the listener) and that (not near the speaker, perhaps near the listener, or not near either).”
Excerpted from: McArthur, Tom. The Oxford Concise Companion to the English Language. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
“A figure of speech which designates something by the name of something associated with it: the Crown substituting for monarchy, the stage for the theater, No. 10 Downing Street for the British Prime Minister, the White House for the US president. A word used metonymically (crown, as above) is a metonym. Metonymy is closely related to and sometimes hard to distinguish from metaphor. It has sometimes been seen as a kind of synecdoche and sometimes as containing synecdoche. Both metaphor and metonymy express association, metaphor through comparison, metonymy through contiguity and possession. Many standard items of vocabulary are metonymic. A red-letter day is important, like the feast days marked in red on church calendars. The work redcap (a porter) originally referred to a piece of red flannel tied for visibility around the caps of baggage carriers at New York’s Grand Central Station. On the level of slang, a redneck is a stereotypical member of the white rural working class in the Southern US, originally a reference to necks sunburned from working in the fields.”
Excerpted from: McArthur, Tom. The Oxford Concise Companion to the English Language. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
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