One of the major problems in artificial intelligence (AI) text generation is text organization; a poorly organized text can be unreadable or even misleading. A comparison of two AI approaches to text organization--McKeown's TEXT system and Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST)--shows that, although they share many assumptions about the nature of text,…

Research articles and research theses constitute two key genres used by scientific communities for the dissemination and ratification of knowledge. Both genres are produced at advanced stages of individuals' enculturation in disciplinary communities present original research aim to persuade the academic community to accept new knowledge claims,…

To identify specific dimensions of communicative disturbances among adults and children in abusive/neglecting families, 10 mother/child pairs from problem families were matched with 10 control pairs. Each mother was videotaped with her 4- to 15-year-old child for 15 minutes while playing a game under nonstressful conditions. Subjects'…

A study of the cognitive processes involved in achieving coherence in discourse examined a major factor affecting the accessibility of referents: the length of absence of the referent from the distribution of different types of grammatical referential devices (definite nouns and anaphoric pronouns) in discourse. Six versions of a set of twenty…

An analysis of how 252 newspapers from nearly 100 countries covered the assassination, on September 14, 1982, of president-elect Bechir Gemayel of Lebanon was conducted. The purpose was to determine whether news reporting in developed nations is different from news reporting in developing countries. Methodology included quantitative and…

This project examines anaphora (the linguistic device of abbreviated subsequent reference to a concept) in information retrieval (IR) systems in order to develop procedures to recognize anaphors in text and distinguish between anaphoric and non-anaphoric uses of a given term, estimate the number of anaphors appearing in bibliographic records, and…

A study was carried out to test the hypothesis that mothers' speech to eight-month-olds differs as a function of maternal age. The subjects were 10 adolescent (mean age 16.5) and 10 older (mean age 24.5 years) mothers, all lower to middle class, first-time mothers, and Caucasian. Each mother and child pair was videotaped in a laboratory…

This paper inquires analytically about the connotative meaning of the terms poverty and learning as they function in the language of comparative education research. In the analysis of concepts, the analytical techniques used are the techniques of definition, explication, illustration, and substitution. Four conceptions of the term learning and…

Free speech of subjects with somatization and paranoia was analyzed to identify and compare self-concept dimensions reflected in their lexical choices. The somatization disorder group conveyed a sense of negativism, distress, and preoccupation with an uncertain self-identity. The paranoid patients portrayed an artificially positive, grandiose…

Ten head-injured adults were compared to normal adults on a narrative picture description task. Subjects were similar in amount of pertinent content expressed, narrative length, and rate of speech, but were significantly slower in rate of information imparted as they required lengthier and slower verbal outputs to convey essential information.…

To examine the relationship between writers' knowledge of expository frames--conventions accepted by both writers and readers in association with a particular type of discourse--and writing skill, 60 persuasive essays were analyzed for content organization. The essays, evaluated as either above average or average on a high school writing…

Twelve learning-disabled children, aged 8-11, were compared with normal peers on various discourse errors. No significant quantitative differences were found in the total number of discourse errors between the disabled and normal groups, but the errors were qualitatively different. Male subjects made significantly more errors than female subjects.…

Over the past 30 years the study of politics has imitated the discourse of the natural sciences. Articles in this mode of discourse can be characterized as opening with a problem expressed through a review of the literature; continuing with an hypothesis, a methodology, and hypothesis testing; and ending with only narrow conclusions, limited to…