This volume provides a comprehensive and in-depth handbook of qualitative research in the field of communication disorders. It introduces and illustrates the wide range of qualitative paradigms that have been used in recent years to investigate various aspects of communication disorders. The first part of the Handbook introduces in some detail the…

An investigation of the process of language teaching as communication in a cross-cultural context shows that there is potential for misunderstanding. Examples of types of errors that are pragmatic rather than grammatical are discussed. A model is presented to help understand the pragmatic error. (DF)

A study was undertaken to demonstrate that expository prose written in Indian English exhibits certain characteristics determined by the sociocultural conventions of writing in the Indian tradition. These features of Indian English texts are often judged to be inappropriate by native speakers of North American and British English, and mistakenly…

This study analyzed complimenting behavior in French between French native speakers and American advanced French learners in seven dinner party conversations. Data are found to provide a rich source of lessons in politeness for both sociolinguistic and pedagogic descriptions of French speech acts. (Author/MSE)

The basic premise of this paper is that second language learning or teaching is an exercise in contrastive linguistics because learners filter and assimilate the second language through the categories and experiences represented by the first language to create situationally appropriate utterances. By selecting and exchanging information,…

Preliminary results of a comparison of the language modifications made by teachers when telling stories to native English speakers and non-native speakers of English at various proficiency levels suggest that teachers need to do more than make the routine modifications in linguistic input to lower-level learners. Teachers need to: (1) act on the…

A discussion of discourse analysis focuses on its usefulness as a framework for analyzing and improving the communication skills of international teaching assistants (ITAs). The discussion is based on the transcript (appended) of a native Chinese-speaking ITA conducting an organic chemistry class in English. Using discourse analysis at one level,…

A study investigated how non-native speakers of English used linguistic and non-linguistic skills to manage interaction in an interview-style verbal test of English proficiency. Subjects were eight international teaching assistants, four native speakers of Spanish and four native speakers of Chinese, who took a standardized oral interview…

By comparing the language performance of native speakers of Mandarin Chinese and English to English second language performance across similar speech events, a study suggests a methodology for discovering potential areas of pragmatic transfer. Subjects were 6 native American English speakers and 12 native Chinese-speakers, 6 using Chinese and 6…

This study analyzed the discourse of electronic mail (e-mail) exchanges between students of English as a second language (ESL) and other ESL learners from other cultures and at varying proficiency levels (keypals), focusing on what these exchanges may reveal about learners' progress through the "Zone of Proximal Development," a…