In this article, we take up and expand upon a number of issues of linguistic theory raised in Ursula Ritzau's recent article "Learner language and polylanguaging: how language students' ideologies relate to their written language use" published in the "Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism". The present critique is…

Michael Rosen, writer, performer, broadcaster and teacher, has been teaching in universities since 1994. He has an MA in Children's Literature from Reading University and a PhD from the University of North London. The father of five children, he discusses in this article his views on Genre Theory, and how he believes it has slipped between the…

Language relating to any concept will tend, over time, to acquire some of the concept?s emotional impact. Thus, words that were, at one stage, neutral become laden with meaning. This document discusses the importance of being aware of the effects that language usage has on communication. It is important to ensure that written and verbal…

Pre-colonial traditional societies in Sub-Saharan Africa were mostly oral societies whose languages were not written. In the African context, especially, it was clear that the mostly oral traditions of these societies' languages were neither being appreciated nor promoted as media of communication, or means of education by the invading Europeans.…

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

Analyzes several texts of Italian poetry to show that signs in poetic language are visual and that they may function independently of their relationship with spoken language. Maintains that poetic language is motivated in its visuality and that it is iconic in a fundamental way. (FL)

Dunlop's account of narrative resolves puzzles about second-order desire and evincing complex emotions, but it works with a too simple view of emotion. This article suggests how a different view of the connection between narrative and emotion can have similar consequences. (five references) (Author/LB)

An organizing framework is presented that can help integrate the large mass of apparently disparate work on written language. The starting point of the paper was collections of articles of reading, writing, and literacy, which seemed not to have a conceptual framework. Ways are discussed that knowledge from linguistics as an academic discipline…

Discusses reasons why lawyers persist in their use of legalese. (PD)

Resuscitating Charles Darwin's language from historians' emphatic denigration of the written word serves as an example to demonstrate what the English discipline can accomplish in recovering cultural heritage. Michael Ghiselin, an evolutionary anatomist, suggests that scholars must concentrate on the ideas, not the language, Darwin employed. Yet…

Discusses the Greek contribution to the alphabet and the development of written communication. Contrasts oral and written traditions and the impact of each. (JMF)

Addresses problems that arise when literacy education is brought from national and international centers to people whose identity is with local languages and literacies. Local literacies are defined with respect to different languages and writing systems, invented local literacies, and vernacular literacies. (Contains 33 references.) (Author)

Argues that the history of punctuation in the English-speaking world offers tangible evidence for the evolving interplay between speech and writing. (Author/VWL)

A replication was conducted of Sterling Leonard's 1932 survey of "Current English Usage," which submitted a questionnaire of expressions to judges consisting of linguists, journalists, teachers, and businessmen. It was hypothesized that more of the expressions in Leonard's study would be acceptable today (looser standards) than was the…

Discusses three principles germane to the idea that writing is a response to its function, compares school writing with home writing, and suggests specific functions of writing that are frequently used in classrooms. (DF)