Three levels of metacommunication knowledge and five factors that influence the understanding of speaker meaning in oral language (gestures, intentions, making sense, being “easy to understand,” and “figuring out” what a speaker means) were identified in pilot interviews with children and adolescents. To assess the extent to which these three levels and five factors are generalizable to a large sample, 156 subjects from three age groups (5-7, 8-11, and 13-18 years) were interviewed. Analysis of covariance and Scheffe comparisons indicated significant age group differences. Guttman scale analyses reflected a sequence in levels of metacommunication knowledge.

This article differentiates the usages of transaction and interaction as reflections of differing paradigms. The transactional theory of reading is dissociated from information-processing and interactive processing. The implications for research of various concepts basic to the total transactional theory of reading are discussed.