Semantic differential profiles as related to monolingual-bilingual types.

IN ORDER TO COMPARE CONCEPTS OF MEANING SIMILARITY OF ENGLISH AND NAVAHO BILINGUALS, AN EXPERIMENT WAS CONDUCTED IN NORTHERN ARIZONA WITH 57 NAVAHO EIGHTH GRADERS. THEY WERE CLASSIFIED AS EITHER "COMPOUND" OR "COORDINATE" BILINGUALS ACCORDING TO WHETHER THEY HAD ASSIMILATED TWO LANGUAGES IN ASSOCIATED CONTEXTS OR IN DISSOCIATED CONTEXTS. THE STUDY'WAS DESIGNED TO INVESTIGATE THE SCOPE OF SEMANTIC DISTANCES AMONG MONOLINGUALS, COMPOUND BILINGUALS, AND COORDINATED BILINGUALS, AND TO DETERMINE THE DEGREES or POLARITY. THE SUBJECTS WERE TESTED AND RATED ON THEIR REACTIONS TO FOUR COMMON CONCEPTS-FATHER, HOME, FOOD, AND ME. ONLY THE SECOND OF TWO PROPOSED HYPOTHESES WAS SUPPORTED, AND FAILURE FOR THE. FIRST WAS PERHAPS DUE TO SUBTLE DIFFERENCES IN LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY WHICH THE RESEARCH PROCEDURE DID NOT PICK UP. THE