Dedicates this issue of "Language Sciences" to Roy Harris, former Professor of Linguistics at Oxford University, on the occasion of his 65th birthday. The article points out that because of Harris's writing style and arguments, he is viewed as a skeptic, who approaches any topic from the perspective of philosophy rather than that of…

The subject and the object are more strategically assigned than some might readily assume, both as people speak and as they live them. Subjectivity is associated with doing, hence responsibility, and therefore it noticeably slides in matters of credit and blame, with issues like Newton's or LaPlace's discovery. In scientific papers the subject has…

Presents diverse theories and concepts of style. A step-by-step analytical procedure for the stylistic examination of texts is provided, which ranges from a brief summary to which other levels of analysis are related, through diction, register tone, punctuation, clausal and sentence types, paragraphing, schemes of construction, and figures of…

Discusses the use of the two past tenses in French, specifically in literature and news reporting. (AM)

Analyzes salutations in 75 letters of application. The 28 applicants who used masculine greetings used four different forms. The 47 who used sex-neutral greetings used 19 different forms. Looks at the applicants' qualifications, sex, and region of the country in which they live as factors influencing the writers' choices of salutations. (SED)

Historians of rhetoric have generally accepted the view that Adam Smith rejected the principles of classical rhetoric. However, while there can be no doubt that Smith greatly truncated the five classical arts of rhetoric (invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery) by reducing his concerns largely to style and arrangement, he did not…

Explores two forms of workplace literacies that served as instruments of management in a community mental health boarding home established for middle-aged women, and summarizes key issues that emerged from analysis of textual ethnography. Examines the record of textual mediation of workers and residents in an extensive, anecdotal workplace text…

Discusses the "Plain English" movement in relation to legal and bureaucratic documents and, especially, courtroom proceedings. Points out ways that language can be manipulated in order to enhance the powerlessness of participants in court litigation. (GC)

Examines the problem of attempting to simplify official texts, with examples from the Netherlands' government. (AM)

Study of the pragmatics of politeness conventionally draws on conversational data, but can be extended to some genres of written text. A framework is described that analyzes politeness strategies in terms of impositions (claims and denials of claims) and reveals some stylistic features in scientific papers and in popularizations. (Author/CB)

Exploring the question of whether or not each writer has one "authentic voice", this document compared the private voice (as found in a personal journal) and the published voice, as well as these voices with those of other authors. Through the process of searching for the authentic voice, the document arrives at 12 conclusions, including…

The paper examines co-occurrences of the major theme types with the various lateral verbs, as outlined in G. Kress and R. Hodge (1979), primarily unmarked/participant themes, other (non-participant) noun group themes, and marked themes. The data consist of 60 editorials from 2 major British newspapers, "The Times" and "The…

Orality and literacy are not antithetical, rather they exist in a complex symbiosis at the individual, family, and community levels. Such a symbiosis is inevitable and appears in all kinds of institutions, including economic, political, social, cultural, and educatonal institutions. Out of this relationship, "printspeak" has emerged. Printspeak is…

There are descriptive similarities on a global level between the history of writing and the development of written language in the young child. Examination of the specific developmental patterns of data of these two phenomena reveals some common elements and some discrepancies between these two patterns. The history of orthography as well as…

The need to introduce nonsexist language into scientific and technical writing is addressed. By taking advantage of the versatility of the English language, it can easily and clearly be indicated that either one or both of the sexes is being discussed, without resorting to biased, euphemistic, or newly-invented wording. There are two conceptually…