Notes that the empirical research in language psychology can be helpful in reorganizing the domain of literary studies. Presents a survey of the major considerations in regard to such an undertaking and provides a specific demonstration. (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)

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)

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)

Presents a framework for expressing how choices are made in systemic grammars. Framework represents grammar as combination of systemic syntactic description and explicit choice processes called "choice experts." (DF)

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)

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

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

Discusses focusing, the manner in which speakers center attention on a particular element of discourse, and describes a process model of focusing that specifies what syntactic, semantic, and world knowledge constraints are needed for a hearer to track a speaker's focus in a discourse. (FL)

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

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)

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