From owner-cse727-sp07-list@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU Sun Mar 4 19:41:46 2007 Received: from ares.cse.buffalo.edu (ares.cse.Buffalo.EDU [128.205.32.79]) by castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU (8.13.6/8.12.10) with ESMTP id l250fjqC018972 for ; Sun, 4 Mar 2007 19:41:45 -0500 (EST) Received: from front2.acsu.buffalo.edu (coldfront.acsu.buffalo.edu [128.205.6.89]) by ares.cse.buffalo.edu (8.13.6/8.13.6) with SMTP id l250fe4t057649 for ; Sun, 4 Mar 2007 19:41:40 -0500 (EST) Received: (qmail 29132 invoked from network); 5 Mar 2007 00:41:40 -0000 Received: from mailscan1.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.6.133) by front2.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 5 Mar 2007 00:41:40 -0000 Received: (qmail 29117 invoked from network); 5 Mar 2007 00:41:40 -0000 Received: from deliverance.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.57) by front2.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 5 Mar 2007 00:41:40 -0000 Received: (qmail 5854 invoked from network); 5 Mar 2007 00:41:39 -0000 Received: from listserv.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.35) by deliverance.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 5 Mar 2007 00:41:39 -0000 Received: by LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release 14.5) with spool id 3627344 for CSE727-SP07-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU; Sun, 4 Mar 2007 19:41:39 -0500 Delivered-To: cse727-sp07-list@listserv.buffalo.edu Received: (qmail 3159 invoked from network); 5 Mar 2007 00:41:39 -0000 Received: from mailscan6.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.95) by listserv.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 5 Mar 2007 00:41:39 -0000 Received: (qmail 2843 invoked by uid 60001); 5 Mar 2007 00:41:39 -0000 X-Mailer: University at Buffalo WebMail Cyrusoft SilkyMail v1.1.11 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Originating-IP: 66.67.170.95 X-UB-Relay: (internal) X-PM-EL-Spam-Prob: : 7% Message-ID: <1173055299.45eb67431186b@mail1.buffalo.edu> Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2007 19:41:39 -0500 Reply-To: jcwhite2@BUFFALO.EDU Sender: "CVA Seminar, Spring 2007" From: John C White Subject: CSE727: On Schatz & Baldwin 1986 To: CSE727-SP07-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU Precedence: list List-Help: , List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Owner: List-Archive: X-UB-Relay: (deliverance.acsu.buffalo.edu) X-DCC-Buffalo.EDU-Metrics: castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU 1029; Body=0 Fuz1=0 Fuz2=0 X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.4 required=5.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=unavailable version=3.1.7 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.7 (2006-10-05) on ares.cse.buffalo.edu X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV 0.88.6/2723/Sun Mar 4 15:50:33 2007 on ares.cse.buffalo.edu X-Virus-Status: Clean Status: R Content-Length: 517 I must admit that after reading this paper and the extensive experiments they have conducted in determining the helpfulness of context clues, it does somewhat make me question how useful they are in some situations. I agree that cases in which natural contexts contain words with a lot of information built into the word and not much shared with the context, finding out its meaning from context is extremely difficult. Still, I must question their downplay on the importance of context to the learning process. From owner-cse727-sp07-list@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU Sun Mar 4 19:46:32 2007 Received: from ares.cse.buffalo.edu (ares.cse.Buffalo.EDU [128.205.32.79]) by castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU (8.13.6/8.12.10) with ESMTP id l250kWYq019081 for ; Sun, 4 Mar 2007 19:46:32 -0500 (EST) Received: from front3.acsu.buffalo.edu (upfront.acsu.buffalo.edu [128.205.4.140]) by ares.cse.buffalo.edu (8.13.6/8.13.6) with SMTP id l250kRKw058126 for ; Sun, 4 Mar 2007 19:46:27 -0500 (EST) Received: (qmail 25932 invoked from network); 5 Mar 2007 00:46:27 -0000 Received: from mailscan8.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.55) by front3.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 5 Mar 2007 00:46:27 -0000 Received: (qmail 25922 invoked from network); 5 Mar 2007 00:46:27 -0000 Received: from deliverance.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.57) by front3.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 5 Mar 2007 00:46:27 -0000 Received: (qmail 10252 invoked from network); 5 Mar 2007 00:46:25 -0000 Received: from listserv.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.35) by deliverance.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 5 Mar 2007 00:46:25 -0000 Received: by LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release 14.5) with spool id 3627377 for CSE727-SP07-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU; Sun, 4 Mar 2007 19:46:25 -0500 Delivered-To: cse727-sp07-list@listserv.buffalo.edu Received: (qmail 5016 invoked from network); 5 Mar 2007 00:46:25 -0000 Received: from mailscan5.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.6.137) by listserv.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 5 Mar 2007 00:46:25 -0000 Received: (qmail 1705 invoked by uid 60001); 5 Mar 2007 00:46:24 -0000 X-Mailer: University at Buffalo WebMail Cyrusoft SilkyMail v1.1.11 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Originating-IP: 66.67.170.95 X-UB-Relay: (internal) X-PM-EL-Spam-Prob: : 7% Message-ID: <1173055584.45eb686078ad6@mail1.buffalo.edu> Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2007 19:46:24 -0500 Reply-To: jcwhite2@BUFFALO.EDU Sender: "CVA Seminar, Spring 2007" From: John C White Subject: CSE727: On Schatz & Baldwin 1986 Continued... To: CSE727-SP07-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU Precedence: list List-Help: , List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Owner: List-Archive: X-UB-Relay: (deliverance.acsu.buffalo.edu) X-DCC-Buffalo.EDU-Metrics: castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU 1029; Body=0 Fuz1=0 Fuz2=0 X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.5 required=5.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=unavailable version=3.1.7 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.7 (2006-10-05) on ares.cse.buffalo.edu X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV 0.88.6/2723/Sun Mar 4 15:50:33 2007 on ares.cse.buffalo.edu X-Virus-Status: Clean Status: R Content-Length: 597 Woops, guess I am not used to webmail, I accidentally sent the first part without finishing my thoughts. Anyway... What I question about their dismissal of context is this; What about multiple occurrences of context clues for the same low frequency word? Sure thats not a typical thing but honestly I feel it is more natural for word meanings to be obtained via multiple encounters with it in context. Although the definition will be hard to find at first, further experience with words even those with little context support will eventually lend support to an overall meaning. -John White From owner-cse727-sp07-list@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU Sun Mar 4 20:39:44 2007 Received: from ares.cse.buffalo.edu (ares.cse.Buffalo.EDU [128.205.32.79]) by castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU (8.13.6/8.12.10) with ESMTP id l251dioZ019971 for ; Sun, 4 Mar 2007 20:39:44 -0500 (EST) Received: from front2.acsu.buffalo.edu (coldfront.acsu.buffalo.edu [128.205.6.89]) by ares.cse.buffalo.edu (8.13.6/8.13.6) with SMTP id l251dg3I062964 for ; Sun, 4 Mar 2007 20:39:42 -0500 (EST) Received: (qmail 20358 invoked from network); 5 Mar 2007 01:39:42 -0000 Received: from mailscan8.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.55) by front2.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 5 Mar 2007 01:39:42 -0000 Received: (qmail 7835 invoked from network); 5 Mar 2007 01:39:42 -0000 Received: from deliverance.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.57) by front1.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 5 Mar 2007 01:39:42 -0000 Received: (qmail 3694 invoked from network); 5 Mar 2007 01:39:31 -0000 Received: from listserv.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.35) by deliverance.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 5 Mar 2007 01:39:31 -0000 Received: by LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release 14.5) with spool id 3627921 for CSE727-SP07-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU; Sun, 4 Mar 2007 20:39:31 -0500 Delivered-To: CSE727-SP07-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU Received: (qmail 28915 invoked from network); 5 Mar 2007 01:39:31 -0000 Received: from mailscan6.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.95) by listserv.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 5 Mar 2007 01:39:31 -0000 Received: (qmail 8673 invoked from network); 5 Mar 2007 01:39:30 -0000 Received: from castor.cse.buffalo.edu (128.205.32.14) by smtp5.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 5 Mar 2007 01:39:30 -0000 Received: from castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU (rapaport@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU (8.13.6/8.12.10) with ESMTP id l251dU4g019957; Sun, 4 Mar 2007 20:39:30 -0500 (EST) Received: (from rapaport@localhost) by castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU (8.13.6/8.12.9/Submit) id l251dTSJ019956; Sun, 4 Mar 2007 20:39:29 -0500 (EST) X-UB-Relay: (castor.cse.buffalo.edu) X-PM-EL-Spam-Prob: : 7% Message-ID: <200703050139.l251dTSJ019956@castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU> Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2007 20:39:29 -0500 Reply-To: "William J. Rapaport" Sender: "CVA Seminar, Spring 2007" From: "William J. Rapaport" Subject: Re: CSE727: On Schatz & Baldwin 1986 Continued... Comments: To: jcwhite2@BUFFALO.EDU To: CSE727-SP07-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU Precedence: list List-Help: , List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Owner: List-Archive: X-UB-Relay: (castor.cse.buffalo.edu) X-DCC-Buffalo.EDU-Metrics: castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU 1335; Body=0 Fuz1=0 Fuz2=0 X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.5 required=5.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=unavailable version=3.1.7 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.7 (2006-10-05) on ares.cse.buffalo.edu X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV 0.88.6/2723/Sun Mar 4 15:50:33 2007 on ares.cse.buffalo.edu X-Virus-Status: Clean Status: R Content-Length: 474 | From: John C White ... | Although the definition will be hard to find at first, further | experience with words even those with little context support will | eventually lend support to an overall meaning. Right--I've always been bothered by their limiting context to the 3 sentences surrounding and including the word. On the other hand, almost all of our experiments with Cassie involve just one sentence! (Plus lots of prior knowledge...) From owner-cse727-sp07-list@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU Sun Mar 18 18:15:20 2007 Received: from ares.cse.buffalo.edu (ares.cse.Buffalo.EDU [128.205.32.79]) by castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU (8.13.6/8.12.10) with ESMTP id l2IMFKIa001711 for ; Sun, 18 Mar 2007 18:15:20 -0400 (EDT) Received: from front1.acsu.buffalo.edu (upfront.acsu.buffalo.edu [128.205.4.140]) by ares.cse.buffalo.edu (8.13.6/8.13.6) with SMTP id l2IMDCfj021426 for ; Sun, 18 Mar 2007 18:13:12 -0400 (EDT) Received: (qmail 29279 invoked from network); 18 Mar 2007 22:06:32 -0000 Received: from mailscan5.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.6.137) by front1.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 18 Mar 2007 22:06:32 -0000 Received: (qmail 23377 invoked from network); 18 Mar 2007 22:06:32 -0000 Received: from deliverance.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.57) by front3.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 18 Mar 2007 22:06:32 -0000 Received: (qmail 24439 invoked from network); 18 Mar 2007 22:06:28 -0000 Received: from listserv.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.35) by deliverance.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 18 Mar 2007 22:06:28 -0000 Received: by LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release 14.5) with spool id 3908350 for CSE727-SP07-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU; Sun, 18 Mar 2007 18:06:28 -0400 Delivered-To: CSE727-SP07-LIST@listserv.buffalo.edu Received: (qmail 17294 invoked from network); 18 Mar 2007 21:56:28 -0000 Received: from mailscan1.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.6.133) by listserv.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 18 Mar 2007 21:56:28 -0000 Received: (qmail 20591 invoked from network); 18 Mar 2007 21:56:27 -0000 Received: from nf-out-0910.google.com (64.233.182.187) by smtp1.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 18 Mar 2007 21:56:27 -0000 Received: by nf-out-0910.google.com with SMTP id k27so828565nfc for ; Sun, 18 Mar 2007 14:56:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.65.214.2 with SMTP id r2mr7545594qbq.1174254984741; Sun, 18 Mar 2007 14:56:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.114.235.15 with HTTP; Sun, 18 Mar 2007 14:56:24 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline X-Google-Sender-Auth: 0c614b85fdb7c6ff X-UB-Relay: (nf-out-0910.google.com) X-PM-Spam-Prob: : 7% Message-ID: <4e4445330703181456l532c055n9dffad9033d570ea@mail.gmail.com> Date: Sun, 18 Mar 2007 17:56:24 -0400 Reply-To: "Paul M. Heider" Sender: "CVA Seminar, Spring 2007" From: "Paul M. Heider" Subject: CSE 727: schatz baldwin 1986 To: CSE727-SP07-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU Precedence: list List-Help: , List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Owner: List-Archive: X-UB-Relay: (nf-out-0910.google.com) X-DCC-Buffalo.EDU-Metrics: castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU 1335; Body=0 Fuz1=0 Fuz2=0 X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.6 required=5.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=unavailable version=3.1.7 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.7 (2006-10-05) on ares.cse.buffalo.edu X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV 0.88.6/2866/Sun Mar 18 17:32:16 2007 on ares.cse.buffalo.edu X-Virus-Status: Clean Status: R Content-Length: 1252 S & B's words in context were pretty hard to guess, even when I knew the word. I'd like to see more of their sentence pairs to see if the example were especially obscure or if all the sentences had such poor contexts. I also felt they didn't really provide enough theory to support a "proof through lack of evidence" claim. Given Nagy, Herman, and Anderson (cited pg. 447-448) managed to find a significant affect and used more subjects, S & B should be working harder to support their theoretical claims. Their experiments were set up nicely, I thought. If they had only done a good job of creating the "context," the whole paper would have been better. As Dr. Rapaport mentioned in his reply to John, S & B limited their context to only 3 sentences. What if we measured an ordinal predictor instead of a categorical predictor? That is, instead of noting whether the word came with or without context (one of two categories), we measured the "amount" of context given the variable. For example, they mentioned how useful the synonyms of "dearth" are to understanding its meaning (pg. 448). A cheap and dirty version would take the WordNet::Similarity values of all the words in the context and use that as a ordinal measure of the sentence. From owner-cse727-sp07-list@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU Sun Mar 18 20:56:11 2007 Received: from ares.cse.buffalo.edu (ares.cse.Buffalo.EDU [128.205.32.79]) by castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU (8.13.6/8.12.10) with ESMTP id l2J0uANg005308 for ; Sun, 18 Mar 2007 20:56:11 -0400 (EDT) Received: from front1.acsu.buffalo.edu (upfront.acsu.buffalo.edu [128.205.4.140]) by ares.cse.buffalo.edu (8.13.6/8.13.6) with SMTP id l2J0tGBQ033706 for ; Sun, 18 Mar 2007 20:55:16 -0400 (EDT) Received: (qmail 7514 invoked from network); 19 Mar 2007 00:55:15 -0000 Received: from mailscan6.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.95) by front1.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 19 Mar 2007 00:55:15 -0000 Received: (qmail 12402 invoked from network); 19 Mar 2007 00:55:15 -0000 Received: from deliverance.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.57) by front3.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 19 Mar 2007 00:55:15 -0000 Received: (qmail 11433 invoked from network); 19 Mar 2007 00:55:13 -0000 Received: from listserv.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.35) by deliverance.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 19 Mar 2007 00:55:13 -0000 Received: by LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release 14.5) with spool id 3909917 for CSE727-SP07-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU; Sun, 18 Mar 2007 20:55:13 -0400 Delivered-To: CSE727-SP07-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU Received: (qmail 24756 invoked from network); 19 Mar 2007 00:55:13 -0000 Received: from mailscan1.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.6.133) by listserv.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 19 Mar 2007 00:55:13 -0000 Received: (qmail 5494 invoked by uid 60001); 19 Mar 2007 00:55:13 -0000 X-Mailer: University at Buffalo WebMail Cyrusoft SilkyMail v1.1.11 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Originating-IP: 72.88.119.160 X-UB-Relay: (internal) X-PM-EL-Spam-Prob: : 7% Message-ID: <1174265713.45fddf711c477@mail4.buffalo.edu> Date: Sun, 18 Mar 2007 20:55:13 -0400 Reply-To: petrova3@BUFFALO.EDU Sender: "CVA Seminar, Spring 2007" From: Nyurguyana Petrova Subject: CSE727: Schatz, E.K. and Baldwin, R.S. (1986) To: CSE727-SP07-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU Precedence: list List-Help: , List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Owner: List-Archive: X-UB-Relay: (deliverance.acsu.buffalo.edu) X-DCC-Buffalo.EDU-Metrics: castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU 1335; Body=0 Fuz1=0 Fuz2=0 X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.2 required=5.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=unavailable version=3.1.7 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.7 (2006-10-05) on ares.cse.buffalo.edu X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV 0.88.6/2867/Sun Mar 18 18:09:46 2007 on ares.cse.buffalo.edu X-Virus-Status: Clean Status: R Content-Length: 1374 Schatz, E.K. and Baldwin, R.S. (1986) "Context clues are unreliable predictors of word meanings": After reading this article I am not quite persuaded that the context is of little or of no importance in figuring out a meaning for a word as claimed by the authors of the article. Although all the experiments' results clearly support the authors hypothesis and do not state in favor of significance of a context, I still believe that a significance of a context if not tremendous then big enough to be considered. Having a context is helpful when figuring out a meaning for a word. The results of the experiments totally contradict to what I am saying but it is possible that the significance of a context is overlooked in interpretations and discussions, and it might have been revealed if there were different kinds of questions raised at the beginning of the article. It might as well be that the authors simply were not interested in that aspect of a context. However, one can imagine a situation when a context is helpful at least in figuring out which domain or area of field a target word belongs to, where and in which context an unfamiliar word is used. On the other hand, if a person reads a word in isolation, it is a word and nothing else, there is nothing to really help you to figure out where and how an unfamiliar word is used. -Yana From owner-cse727-sp07-list@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU Mon Mar 19 11:07:11 2007 Received: from ares.cse.buffalo.edu (ares.cse.Buffalo.EDU [128.205.32.79]) by castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU (8.13.6/8.12.10) with ESMTP id l2JF7Aqo029316 for ; Mon, 19 Mar 2007 11:07:11 -0400 (EDT) Received: from front2.acsu.buffalo.edu (warmfront.acsu.buffalo.edu [128.205.6.88]) by ares.cse.buffalo.edu (8.13.6/8.13.6) with SMTP id l2JF6x0O019358 for ; Mon, 19 Mar 2007 11:06:59 -0400 (EDT) Received: (qmail 21135 invoked from network); 19 Mar 2007 15:06:59 -0000 Received: from mailscan4.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.6.136) by front2.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 19 Mar 2007 15:06:59 -0000 Received: (qmail 21096 invoked from network); 19 Mar 2007 15:06:59 -0000 Received: from deliverance.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.57) by front2.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 19 Mar 2007 15:06:59 -0000 Received: (qmail 9698 invoked from network); 19 Mar 2007 15:06:48 -0000 Received: from listserv.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.35) by deliverance.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 19 Mar 2007 15:06:48 -0000 Received: by LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release 14.5) with spool id 3912698 for CSE727-SP07-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU; Mon, 19 Mar 2007 11:06:47 -0400 Delivered-To: CSE727-SP07-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU Received: (qmail 5446 invoked from network); 19 Mar 2007 15:05:08 -0000 Received: from mailscan7.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.6.158) by listserv.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 19 Mar 2007 15:05:08 -0000 Received: (qmail 26783 invoked by uid 60001); 19 Mar 2007 15:05:07 -0000 X-Mailer: University at Buffalo WebMail Cyrusoft SilkyMail v1.1.11 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Originating-IP: 128.205.58.182 X-UB-Relay: (internal) X-PM-EL-Spam-Prob: : 7% Message-ID: <1174316707.45fea6a3b8fcc@mail3.buffalo.edu> Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2007 11:05:07 -0400 Reply-To: ask8@BUFFALO.EDU Sender: "CVA Seminar, Spring 2007" From: Ashish Kulkarni Subject: Schatz, Elinore Kress, & Baldwin, R. Scott (1986), "Context Clues Are Unreliable Predictors of Word Meanings", To: CSE727-SP07-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU Precedence: list List-Help: , List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Owner: List-Archive: X-UB-Relay: (deliverance.acsu.buffalo.edu) X-DCC-Buffalo.EDU-Metrics: castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU 1336; Body=0 Fuz1=0 Fuz2=0 X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.4 required=5.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_05 autolearn=unavailable version=3.1.7 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.7 (2006-10-05) on ares.cse.buffalo.edu X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV 0.88.6/2872/Mon Mar 19 06:31:47 2007 on ares.cse.buffalo.edu X-Virus-Status: Clean Status: RO X-Status: X-Keywords: NotJunk $NotJunk X-UID: 14501 Content-Length: 1869 The article argues about the contextual unreliability in understanding the meaning of the word. Three experiments are said performed to prove the same, but what bothers me is the limited number of students it was tested on. By limited number, I not only mean the small number of students, but also the limited approach of age group of students. Moreover, the words that are used are only rare words which occur once in a million words in a text. So by picking up the rarest of words, and adolescent individuals they are arguing that context clues are unreliable predictors of word meanings. I think this experiment can be considered to be more accurate if students of different age groups, cultures, and origins are taken into consideration. Many words that we now consider as words of daily use, must have been learned by context. For example, when one uses the term ‘cool’ in reference, ‘You are cool!’ one might mean that some other person gives one a good company. Now a non-native speaker who has never heard this term is more likely to consider the meaning of cool as good rather than something related to temperature. People of different cultures and background of language and religions would have different ways of learning English language. Some might use context more while some might understand new words only by dictionary. So looking at just Caucasians in Florida is not a good way to generalize about predictability of words through context. Lastly, not being able to predict words, which appear once in a million words, through context conveys more that contextual help certainly fails once in a million times. It certainly does not say that the remaining words that we frequently use were not learned through context. So the study can be considered as highly inaccurate if whole English language is taken into consideration. From owner-cse727-sp07-list@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU Tue Mar 20 21:48:50 2007 Received: from ares.cse.buffalo.edu (ares.cse.Buffalo.EDU [128.205.32.79]) by castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU (8.13.6/8.12.10) with ESMTP id l2L1mo8h016001 for ; Tue, 20 Mar 2007 21:48:50 -0400 (EDT) Received: from front3.acsu.buffalo.edu (coldfront.acsu.buffalo.edu [128.205.6.89]) by ares.cse.buffalo.edu (8.13.6/8.13.6) with SMTP id l2L1mmeM091956 for ; Tue, 20 Mar 2007 21:48:48 -0400 (EDT) Received: (qmail 28536 invoked from network); 21 Mar 2007 01:48:48 -0000 Received: from mailscan1.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.6.133) by front3.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 21 Mar 2007 01:48:48 -0000 Received: (qmail 23431 invoked from network); 21 Mar 2007 01:48:48 -0000 Received: from defer.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.58) by front2.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 21 Mar 2007 01:48:48 -0000 Received: (qmail 15857 invoked from network); 21 Mar 2007 01:48:35 -0000 Received: from listserv.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.35) by defer.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 21 Mar 2007 01:48:35 -0000 Received: by LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release 14.5) with spool id 3977316 for CSE727-SP07-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU; Tue, 20 Mar 2007 21:48:35 -0400 Delivered-To: CSE727-SP07-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU Received: (qmail 26123 invoked from network); 21 Mar 2007 01:48:01 -0000 Received: from mailscan6.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.95) by listserv.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 21 Mar 2007 01:48:01 -0000 Received: (qmail 23886 invoked from network); 21 Mar 2007 01:48:00 -0000 Received: from castor.cse.buffalo.edu (128.205.32.14) by smtp2.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 21 Mar 2007 01:48:00 -0000 Received: from castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU (rapaport@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU (8.13.6/8.12.10) with ESMTP id l2L1m0Z7015981 for ; Tue, 20 Mar 2007 21:48:00 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from rapaport@localhost) by castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU (8.13.6/8.12.9/Submit) id l2L1m0C9015980 for CSE727-SP07-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU; Tue, 20 Mar 2007 21:48:00 -0400 (EDT) X-UB-Relay: (castor.cse.buffalo.edu) X-PM-EL-Spam-Prob: : 7% Message-ID: <200703210148.l2L1m0C9015980@castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU> Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2007 21:48:00 -0400 Reply-To: "William J. Rapaport" Sender: "CVA Seminar, Spring 2007" From: "William J. Rapaport" Subject: Re: CSE727: Schatz, E.K. and Baldwin, R.S. (1986) To: CSE727-SP07-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU Precedence: list List-Help: , List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Owner: List-Archive: X-UB-Relay: (castor.cse.buffalo.edu) X-DCC-Buffalo.EDU-Metrics: castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU 1029; Body=0 Fuz1=0 Fuz2=0 X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.5 required=5.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=ham version=3.1.7 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.7 (2006-10-05) on ares.cse.buffalo.edu X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV 0.88.6/2883/Tue Mar 20 18:49:34 2007 on ares.cse.buffalo.edu X-Virus-Status: Clean Status: R Content-Length: 743 One comment prompted by some of your comments on this article, as well as on others, is this: Many of these authors actually don't mean by "CVA" (or whatever phrase they use in its place) what I mean by "CVA". They often (but not always) mean the ability of a reader, in particular, a student learning language, to *learn* "the" meaning of a word from context, i.e., to completely understand a full dictionary-like meaning and to begin to use the word correctly henceforth. I agree that this is rare and unlikely in most contexts. By contrast, what I mean is the ability to *figure out* "a" meaning sufficient to be able to understand the passage being read, based on information from the textual context *integrated* with prior knowledge. From owner-cse727-sp07-list@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU Tue Mar 20 21:58:55 2007 Received: from ares.cse.buffalo.edu (ares.cse.Buffalo.EDU [128.205.32.79]) by castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU (8.13.6/8.12.10) with ESMTP id l2L1wtWF016337 for ; Tue, 20 Mar 2007 21:58:55 -0400 (EDT) Received: from front3.acsu.buffalo.edu (coldfront.acsu.buffalo.edu [128.205.6.89]) by ares.cse.buffalo.edu (8.13.6/8.13.6) with SMTP id l2L1wpUT092744 for ; Tue, 20 Mar 2007 21:58:51 -0400 (EDT) Received: (qmail 16783 invoked from network); 21 Mar 2007 01:58:51 -0000 Received: from mailscan7.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.6.158) by front3.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 21 Mar 2007 01:58:51 -0000 Received: (qmail 4227 invoked from network); 21 Mar 2007 01:58:51 -0000 Received: from deliverance.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.57) by front2.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 21 Mar 2007 01:58:51 -0000 Received: (qmail 6768 invoked from network); 21 Mar 2007 01:58:46 -0000 Received: from listserv.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.35) by deliverance.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 21 Mar 2007 01:58:46 -0000 Received: by LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release 14.5) with spool id 3977430 for CSE727-SP07-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU; Tue, 20 Mar 2007 21:58:46 -0400 Delivered-To: CSE727-SP07-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU Received: (qmail 29995 invoked from network); 21 Mar 2007 01:58:46 -0000 Received: from mailscan3.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.6.135) by listserv.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 21 Mar 2007 01:58:46 -0000 Received: (qmail 1015 invoked from network); 21 Mar 2007 01:58:45 -0000 Received: from castor.cse.buffalo.edu (128.205.32.14) by smtp3.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 21 Mar 2007 01:58:45 -0000 Received: from castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU (rapaport@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU (8.13.6/8.12.10) with ESMTP id l2L1wjAA016329 for ; Tue, 20 Mar 2007 21:58:45 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from rapaport@localhost) by castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU (8.13.6/8.12.9/Submit) id l2L1wjcF016328 for CSE727-SP07-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU; Tue, 20 Mar 2007 21:58:45 -0400 (EDT) X-UB-Relay: (castor.cse.buffalo.edu) X-PM-EL-Spam-Prob: : 7% Message-ID: <200703210158.l2L1wjcF016328@castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU> Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2007 21:58:45 -0400 Reply-To: "William J. Rapaport" Sender: "CVA Seminar, Spring 2007" From: "William J. Rapaport" Subject: Re: CSE 727: schatz baldwin 1986 To: CSE727-SP07-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU Precedence: list List-Help: , List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Owner: List-Archive: X-UB-Relay: (castor.cse.buffalo.edu) X-DCC-Buffalo.EDU-Metrics: castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU 1336; Body=0 Fuz1=0 Fuz2=0 X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.5 required=5.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=unavailable version=3.1.7 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.7 (2006-10-05) on ares.cse.buffalo.edu X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV 0.88.6/2884/Tue Mar 20 20:59:48 2007 on ares.cse.buffalo.edu X-Virus-Status: Clean Status: R Content-Length: 1088 Paul wrote: | Date: Sun, 18 Mar 2007 17:56:24 -0400 | From: "Paul M. Heider" | | S & B's words in context were pretty hard to guess, even when I knew | the word. I'd like to see more of their sentence pairs to see if the | example were especially obscure or if all the sentences had such poor | contexts. Did you try the full CVA treatment? I bet it would have worked almost everywhere with their examples. For reasons why, see: Rapaport, William J. (2005), "In Defense of Contextual Vocabulary Acquisition: How to Do Things with Words in Context", in A. Dey et al. (eds.), Proceedings of the 5th International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Modeling and Using Context (Context-05) (Berlin: Springer-Verlag Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence 3554): 396-409. http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/Papers/paris.pdf and the CVA "human"-oriented algorithm/curriculum: http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/CVA/curriculum-outline.html | Their experiments were set up nicely, I thought. I critique their experiments in the paper cited above. From owner-cse727-sp07-list@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU Wed Mar 21 20:58:22 2007 Received: from ares.cse.buffalo.edu (ares.cse.Buffalo.EDU [128.205.32.79]) by castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU (8.13.6/8.12.10) with ESMTP id l2M0wMPV002341 for ; Wed, 21 Mar 2007 20:58:22 -0400 (EDT) Received: from front3.acsu.buffalo.edu (coldfront.acsu.buffalo.edu [128.205.6.89]) by ares.cse.buffalo.edu (8.13.6/8.13.6) with SMTP id l2M0wJ9Z077883 for ; Wed, 21 Mar 2007 20:58:19 -0400 (EDT) Received: (qmail 26605 invoked from network); 22 Mar 2007 00:58:19 -0000 Received: from mailscan6.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.95) by front3.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 22 Mar 2007 00:58:19 -0000 Received: (qmail 26598 invoked from network); 22 Mar 2007 00:58:19 -0000 Received: from deliverance.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.57) by front3.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 22 Mar 2007 00:58:19 -0000 Received: (qmail 28818 invoked from network); 22 Mar 2007 00:58:16 -0000 Received: from listserv.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.35) by deliverance.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 22 Mar 2007 00:58:16 -0000 Received: by LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release 14.5) with spool id 4006329 for CSE727-SP07-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU; Wed, 21 Mar 2007 20:58:16 -0400 Delivered-To: cse727-sp07-list@listserv.buffalo.edu Received: (qmail 24165 invoked from network); 22 Mar 2007 00:48:16 -0000 Received: from mailscan7.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.6.158) by listserv.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 22 Mar 2007 00:48:16 -0000 Received: (qmail 8254 invoked by uid 60001); 22 Mar 2007 00:48:15 -0000 X-Mailer: University at Buffalo WebMail Cyrusoft SilkyMail v1.1.11 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Originating-IP: 128.205.159.226 X-UB-Relay: (internal) X-PM-EL-Spam-Prob: : 7% Message-ID: <1174524495.4601d24fbefb2@mail3.buffalo.edu> Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2007 20:48:15 -0400 Reply-To: amhassan@BUFFALO.EDU Sender: "CVA Seminar, Spring 2007" From: Ahmed Hassan Subject: CSE727 To: CSE727-SP07-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU Precedence: list List-Help: , List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Owner: List-Archive: X-UB-Relay: (deliverance.acsu.buffalo.edu) X-DCC-Buffalo.EDU-Metrics: castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU 1336; Body=0 Fuz1=0 Fuz2=0 X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.5 required=5.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=unavailable version=3.1.7 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.7 (2006-10-05) on ares.cse.buffalo.edu X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV 0.88.6/2895/Wed Mar 21 19:46:31 2007 on ares.cse.buffalo.edu X-Virus-Status: Clean Status: RO X-Status: X-Keywords: NotJunk $NotJunk X-UID: 14562 Content-Length: 2085 ;***************************************************************** Schatz, Elinore Kress, & Baldwin, R. Scott (1986), "Context Clues Are Unreliable Predictors of Word Meanings", Reading Research Quarterly 21(4, Fall): 439-453. ;** Comments ****************************************************** A very interesting study with some disappointing results (in my opinion) about using context-clues in understanding the meaning of an unknown word. The authors did 3 (not very different) experiments to make a statistics about the percentage of people who can effectively use the clues given in the context to infer the meaning. The results they obtained showed that context clues can be of no use about 50% of the time. This means that we may get the same results of identifying an unknown word, if we rely on context clues or if we don't. Their studies make sense when the unknown word is new to the reader and if the unknown word is of low-frequency. However, what I see as a problem is that how could it be hard for readers to infer the meaning of a high-frequency word from the context? I've a comment on their work methods... they used a multiple-question and cloze tasks to ask the reader about the required meaning. I think the distractor words may affected the answers of the students they performed the study on, because a reader who may not know the meaning, may guess or try hard to infer its meaning from the context. But if a reader finds alternatives, she may not be forced well to use her brain so much :) I think it's better not to give distractors. As the authors mentioned in their conclusions: "...context clues work best when the target word is redundant..." The results show some relation between the possibility of inferring the meaning of an unknown word and the importance of this word in the context; so if the word is essential, there'll be a little to infer about it, but if it's not essential (redundant), then the other words in the same context may help in inferring its meaning very closely. ;***************************************************************** From owner-cse727-sp07-list@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU Mon Apr 23 21:00:05 2007 Received: from ares.cse.buffalo.edu (ares.cse.Buffalo.EDU [128.205.32.79]) by castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU (8.13.6/8.12.10) with ESMTP id l3O104O1011755 for ; Mon, 23 Apr 2007 21:00:04 -0400 (EDT) Received: from front1.acsu.buffalo.edu (coldfront.acsu.buffalo.edu [128.205.6.89]) by ares.cse.buffalo.edu (8.13.6/8.13.6) with SMTP id l3O0xxgo046218 for ; Mon, 23 Apr 2007 20:59:59 -0400 (EDT) Received: (qmail 5723 invoked from network); 24 Apr 2007 00:59:59 -0000 Received: from mailscan3.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.6.135) by front1.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 24 Apr 2007 00:59:59 -0000 Received: (qmail 26271 invoked from network); 24 Apr 2007 00:59:58 -0000 Received: from deliverance.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.57) by front3.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 24 Apr 2007 00:59:58 -0000 Received: (qmail 19035 invoked from network); 24 Apr 2007 00:59:43 -0000 Received: from listserv.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.35) by deliverance.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 24 Apr 2007 00:59:43 -0000 Received: by LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release 14.5) with spool id 4970198 for CSE727-SP07-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU; Mon, 23 Apr 2007 20:59:43 -0400 Delivered-To: cse727-sp07-list@listserv.buffalo.edu Received: (qmail 25648 invoked from network); 24 Apr 2007 00:56:48 -0000 Received: from mailscan1.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.6.133) by listserv.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 24 Apr 2007 00:56:48 -0000 Received: (qmail 13026 invoked from network); 24 Apr 2007 00:56:46 -0000 Received: from mta13.mail.adelphia.net (HELO mta13.adelphia.net) (68.168.78.44) by smtp1.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 24 Apr 2007 00:56:46 -0000 Received: from [127.0.0.1] (really [68.168.86.62]) by mta13.adelphia.net (InterMail vM.6.01.05.02 201-2131-123-102-20050715) with ESMTP id <20070424005646.DCIJ13783.mta13.adelphia.net@[127.0.0.1]> for ; Mon, 23 Apr 2007 20:56:46 -0400 User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.10 (Windows/20070221) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-UB-Relay: (mta13.mail.adelphia.net) X-PM-Spam-Prob: : 7% Message-ID: <462D55F7.70303@cse.buffalo.edu> Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2007 20:57:27 -0400 Reply-To: Jeffrey Howell Sender: "CVA Seminar, Spring 2007" From: Jeffrey Howell Subject: CSE 727: Schatz & Baldwin (1986) To: CSE727-SP07-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU Precedence: list List-Help: , List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Owner: List-Archive: X-UB-Relay: (mta13.mail.adelphia.net) X-DCC-Buffalo.EDU-Metrics: castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU 1336; Body=0 Fuz1=0 Fuz2=0 X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.6 required=5.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=ham version=3.1.7 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.7 (2006-10-05) on ares.cse.buffalo.edu X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV 0.88.6/3152/Mon Apr 23 18:34:59 2007 on ares.cse.buffalo.edu X-Virus-Status: Clean Status: R Content-Length: 2353 Schatz and Baldwin make some good points about context clues. Assuming that because a reader can easily identify a missing high-frequency word in a sentence, that same reader can identify the meaning of a low-frequency word with as much ease is... an odd assumption to say the least. If that was really the prevailing view in 1986, I can understand the authors' concern. (This was not my personal experience at the time, but more on that later...) Although they did try to cover all the bases in their three experiments, there are still some things that stick out as being odd here. Cutting out only a few sentences from a specific paragraph as the full context regardless of helpful context elsewhere in the paragraph or in surrounding paragraphs seems to me as artificial as the too-easy contexts they criticize, firstly. Justifying this decision on the basis of *size* is strange. Size has little to do with how helpful the content of those sentences is going to be. For experiments 1 and 2, instructing the readers to guess if they didn't know the correct answer seems as though it would pollute the results with random results - in a sample size of 101 students, that might not have a huge effect, but with the smaller sample size of experiment 2, that could be a problem. Those concerns obviously don't have any bearing on experiment 3, but that has its own potential problems - why were responses considered only right or wrong? A scale of some sort might be more realistic, since understanding of vocabulary isn't always absolute. A scale would probably have been a great deal more difficult to come up with than simply right or wrong, obviously... it's hard to be completely consistent. Oddly enough, when I was in elementary school (at about the time this was written...) use of the dictionary was encouraged. We weren't given any particular instruction in determining word meaning from context at all. This is possibly a difference between the US and Canadian school systems, though I can't be sure. What I ran into fairly quickly is that looking up the meaning of a word, as often as not, meant having to look up *other* words used in the definition. It didn't take long before that process became frustrating. I would have some difficulty recommending it to the average grade-school student. From owner-cse727-sp07-list@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU Tue Apr 24 06:34:27 2007 Received: from ares.cse.buffalo.edu (ares.cse.Buffalo.EDU [128.205.32.79]) by castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU (8.13.6/8.12.10) with ESMTP id l3OAYRcE024477 for ; Tue, 24 Apr 2007 06:34:27 -0400 (EDT) Received: from front3.acsu.buffalo.edu (upfront.acsu.buffalo.edu [128.205.4.140]) by ares.cse.buffalo.edu (8.13.6/8.13.6) with SMTP id l3OAYO3Y072153 for ; Tue, 24 Apr 2007 06:34:24 -0400 (EDT) Received: (qmail 3213 invoked from network); 24 Apr 2007 10:34:24 -0000 Received: from mailscan4.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.6.136) by front3.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 24 Apr 2007 10:34:24 -0000 Received: (qmail 4747 invoked from network); 24 Apr 2007 10:34:23 -0000 Received: from deliverance.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.57) by front1.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 24 Apr 2007 10:34:23 -0000 Received: (qmail 14701 invoked from network); 24 Apr 2007 10:34:18 -0000 Received: from listserv.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.35) by deliverance.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 24 Apr 2007 10:34:18 -0000 Received: by LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release 14.5) with spool id 4978658 for CSE727-SP07-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU; Tue, 24 Apr 2007 06:34:18 -0400 Delivered-To: cse727-sp07-list@listserv.buffalo.edu Received: (qmail 18547 invoked from network); 24 Apr 2007 10:34:17 -0000 Received: from mailscan4.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.6.136) by listserv.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 24 Apr 2007 10:34:17 -0000 Received: (qmail 25501 invoked from network); 24 Apr 2007 10:34:16 -0000 Received: from 67-20-233-65.kntnny.adelphia.net (HELO pavano) (67.20.233.65) by smtp4.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 24 Apr 2007 10:34:16 -0000 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.3028 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.3028 X-UB-Relay: (67-20-233-65.kntnny.adelphia.net) X-PM-Spam-Prob: XX: 22% Message-ID: <000301c7865c$1b3638c0$41e91443@pavano> Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2007 06:34:14 -0400 Reply-To: "J. A." Sender: "CVA Seminar, Spring 2007" From: "J. A." Subject: CSE727: Comments on Schatz and Baldwin 1986 To: CSE727-SP07-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU Precedence: list List-Help: , List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Owner: List-Archive: X-UB-Relay: (67-20-233-65.kntnny.adelphia.net) X-DCC-Buffalo.EDU-Metrics: castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU 1029; Body=0 Fuz1=0 Fuz2=0 X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_05 autolearn=unavailable version=3.1.7 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.7 (2006-10-05) on ares.cse.buffalo.edu X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV 0.88.6/3154/Tue Apr 24 02:13:03 2007 on ares.cse.buffalo.edu X-Virus-Status: Clean Status: RO Content-Length: 2752 After reading the study, I have to agree with most of the criticisms of this paper that were made earlier in the semester. For instance, in Experiment 1 most of the randomly selected passages contained either adverbs or adjectives as the target word. Furthermore, paragraphs which contained more than one "low-frequency" word were considered as well. This is a problem since contextual vocabulary acquisition is not useful when there are multiple unknown words or concepts in a given context. Also, the tasks that were administered did not actually test what the authors intended them to test. The questions were not exercises in CVA, they were exercises in word sense disambiguation tests. The fact that they were multiple choice also limited the amount of information that could be derived from the answers. It is impossible to tell how much context helped or how it was used when all a test subject can do is circle a synonym. Furthermore, we might consider an incorrect answer supported by proper context analysis as "more correct" than a correct answer that was arrived at by guessing or sheer dumb luck. With a multiple choice test, there is no way to make this distinction. In Experiment 2, scientific texts were introduced into the set of possible contexts. As stated later in this paper, "after a technical term appears once and is defined, if it reappears, it does so as a term that is undefined, yet is critical to the meaning of the text." A context which is structured in this way is almost guaranteed to be unhelpful. Indeed, the paper even states that "this word will probably not be supported by context clues," which makes me wonder how exactly they could test the effectiveness of context when they knew ahead of time that the context that they provided was not effective. It's no wonder that students struggled with these words - they lacked the prior knowledge to understand them! Finally, many of the words are seen in a single isolated context. CVA is a gradual process, working over several contexts in order to have a definition "converge" to something acceptable. One of the arguments presented in the paper is that contexts may actually lead to incorrect definitions. I would agree with this if a given reader saw only one "misleading" context for a given word. For example, an adverb or adjective used in a sarcastic way within a context would invariably result in an incorrect definition for a reader who did not realize that sarcasm was involved. However, the reader would invariably realize their mistake after repeated exposure to the same word in different contexts and come closer to a correct answer. However, the test subjects in this study do not have this opportunity. - Joe From owner-cse727-sp07-list@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU Tue Apr 24 10:40:46 2007 Received: from ares.cse.buffalo.edu (ares.cse.Buffalo.EDU [128.205.32.79]) by castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU (8.13.6/8.12.10) with ESMTP id l3OEejpf003518 for ; Tue, 24 Apr 2007 10:40:45 -0400 (EDT) Received: from front2.acsu.buffalo.edu (upfront.acsu.buffalo.edu [128.205.4.140]) by ares.cse.buffalo.edu (8.13.6/8.13.6) with SMTP id l3OEehMg086062 for ; Tue, 24 Apr 2007 10:40:43 -0400 (EDT) Received: (qmail 21592 invoked from network); 24 Apr 2007 14:40:43 -0000 Received: from mailscan8.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.55) by front2.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 24 Apr 2007 14:40:43 -0000 Received: (qmail 21559 invoked from network); 24 Apr 2007 14:40:43 -0000 Received: from deliverance.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.57) by front2.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 24 Apr 2007 14:40:43 -0000 Received: (qmail 4784 invoked from network); 24 Apr 2007 14:40:35 -0000 Received: from listserv.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.35) by deliverance.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 24 Apr 2007 14:40:35 -0000 Received: by LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release 14.5) with spool id 4989280 for CSE727-SP07-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU; Tue, 24 Apr 2007 10:40:35 -0400 Delivered-To: CSE727-SP07-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU Received: (qmail 27415 invoked from network); 24 Apr 2007 14:40:35 -0000 Received: from mailscan4.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.6.136) by listserv.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 24 Apr 2007 14:40:35 -0000 Received: (qmail 1471 invoked from network); 24 Apr 2007 14:40:34 -0000 Received: from castor.cse.buffalo.edu (128.205.32.14) by smtp1.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 24 Apr 2007 14:40:34 -0000 Received: from castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU (rapaport@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU (8.13.6/8.12.10) with ESMTP id l3OEeYE7003497 for ; Tue, 24 Apr 2007 10:40:34 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from rapaport@localhost) by castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU (8.13.6/8.12.9/Submit) id l3OEeYc3003496 for CSE727-SP07-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU; Tue, 24 Apr 2007 10:40:34 -0400 (EDT) X-UB-Relay: (castor.cse.buffalo.edu) X-PM-EL-Spam-Prob: : 7% Message-ID: <200704241440.l3OEeYc3003496@castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU> Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2007 10:40:34 -0400 Reply-To: "William J. Rapaport" Sender: "CVA Seminar, Spring 2007" From: "William J. Rapaport" Subject: Re: CSE 727: Schatz & Baldwin (1986) To: CSE727-SP07-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU Precedence: list List-Help: , List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Owner: List-Archive: X-UB-Relay: (castor.cse.buffalo.edu) X-DCC-Buffalo.EDU-Metrics: castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU 1335; Body=0 Fuz1=0 Fuz2=0 X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.5 required=5.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=ham version=3.1.7 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.7 (2006-10-05) on ares.cse.buffalo.edu X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV 0.88.6/3155/Tue Apr 24 09:27:10 2007 on ares.cse.buffalo.edu X-Virus-Status: Clean Status: R Content-Length: 848 Jeff wrote: | | Those concerns obviously don't have any bearing on experiment 3, but | that has its own potential problems - why were responses considered only | right or wrong? A scale of some sort might be more realistic, since | understanding of vocabulary isn't always absolute. A scale would | probably have been a great deal more difficult to come up with than | simply right or wrong, obviously... it's hard to be completely consistent. Actually, it's not only hard, it's PhD-level research currently being conducted by one of Kibby's students, Tanya Christ. She's come up with a scale that has about a dozen gradations on it. | Oddly enough, when I was in elementary school (at about the time this | was written...) use of the dictionary was encouraged. Note, of course, that a dictionary definition is just another context!