Reviews the methodological issues raised by previous research into the language used by thought-disordered and nondisordered schizophrenics. (FL)

Discusses the process of understanding of intent by which participants, through the comparative interpretation of a series of cues and symbols as they are revealed in speech, develop categories for a contextual model of communication. Argues that discourse is essentially dialogic and phenomenologically realizable. (FL)

Contends that the organization of comments made by one discourse participant on the contributions of another reveals a hierarchy of relevance and informativity. Illustrates this with discourse samples subjected to a particular method of analysis. (FL)

Discusses the ellipsis of major sentential elements as a pervasive grammatical phenomenon in Japanese conversation and demonstrates its relevance for current theories of discourse or text analysis. (FL)

Discusses the sources of information in oral language. Uses converging evidence from prosody, pausing, structural and semantic parallelism, and stylistic analysis to argue for a series of hypotheses about the units that organize the construction of narrative discourse. Provides examples and appendixes. (JD)

Proposes that dialogue provides children with opportunities to participate with adults in creating linguistic relationships of which they would be incapable alone. Reports the findings of a study of dialogues between mothers and their young children. (FL)

Discusses how children in one society on the Papuan Plateau, Papua, New Guinea, learn about making and responding to requests based on a strategy of appeal. (FL)

Illustrates the existence of meanings in conversation that are not based on the listener's interpretations by analyzing the conversations from a family therapy session. Transcripts of the conversations are appended. (HTH)

Explores the hypothesis that speech acts cannot be located without bringing in knowledge beyond that of the textual referent itself. Points out that speech acts are made up of sentence context pairs through which one must search for a formal motion of context as a framing of speech activities. (FL)

Critically examines papers by Wellman and Estes, Olson and Torrance, and Hall and Nagy. (AEW)

Appraises R. Kaplan's "contrastic rhetoric" in the light of a multilanguage research project on discourse structure. Concludes that Kaplan's specific analyses are in need of substantive revision. (FL)

Provides an overview of recent advances in the study of the psychology of question answering, with particular emphasis on the ability to answer questions about coherent spoken and written messages. Examines the components of question answering, employing strategies, memory search, and comparison operations. (SR)

Assesses three papers in this volume, those by Wellman and Estes, Olson and Torrance, and Hall and Nagy, for their treatment of the following: (1) definition of semantic space, (2) defining children's processes of understanding that space, and (3) describing the contexts in which cognitive language is used. (AEW)

Demonstrates the value of quantitative analysis of discourse options by focusing on two discourse options for the representation of cause and effect. (HTH)

Proposes a top-down procedural model for the dynamic extraction and use of context structure to resolve references. (FL)