This linguistic and ethnographic project examines register formation among a community of Sri Lankan university youth. The Raggers group at the University of Peradeniya (Kandy, Sri Lanka) has strict rules forbidding the use of English and supporting a register of Sinhala made up of linguistic features from different Sinhala varieties. Detailing…

This paper seeks to analyse discourse patterns of legal opinions in two languages and cultures--namely, Legal Problem Question Answers (LPQs) in the UK academic writing context and Pareri (Ps) in the Italian professional writing context. The qualitative and quantitative analysis of discourse in this paper, based on the tenets of genre analysis,…

One of the major innovations of the "TOEFL iBT"® test is the incorporation of integrated tasks complementing the independent tasks to which examinees respond. In addition, examinees must produce discourse in both modes (speech and writing). The validity argument for the TOEFL iBT includes the claim that examinees vary their discourse in…

This study examines the linguistic complexity and lexical diversity of both overt and covert L2 output produced during synchronous written computer-mediated communication, also referred to as chat. Video enhanced chatscripts produced by university learners of German (N = 23) engaged in dyadic task-based chat interaction were coded and analyzed for…

Proposes the Vocabulary-Management Profile, a tool for discourse analysis. The number of new words introduced in a moving interval of text 35 words long is counted and a curve created by plotting the number of new words in a successive interval at the midpoint of the interval. Analyses of text by George Orwell and James Joyce are presented. (JL)

The introduction to discourse analysis is intended specifically to inform second language teachers about aspects of discourse analysis that can be helpful in instruction. It presents the principles seen as relevant to the language teaching context and illustrates them with real spoken and written language data. The first chapter gives a historical…

This study was a comparative investigation of face-to-face and written electronic conferences. The participants were advanced English as a second language (hereafter: ESL) students. The two types of conferences were compared in terms of textual features and participation. There was no statistically significant difference in the total number of…

This handbook offers a detailed description of the structure and rhetorical effects observed in various genres of Japanese discourse. Drawing on Japanese "bunshooron" and incorporating results of Western discourse studies, the book covers principles of overall rhetorical organization, including"ki-shoo-ten-ketsu," topic structure, "danraku," and…

Patient information leaflets are an important adjunct to verbal exchange between doctor and patient. Their value is dependent upon whether they contain useful information from the viewpoint of the patient and are easily understood. We developed a framework based upon linguistic theory for assessing the quality of written patient information and…

This guide provides an overview of the salient features of the Japanese language from the perspective of the beginning-level English-speaking learner. Chapters address these topics: the Japanese language and its historic and cultural setting; phonology (sounds and syllables, word accentuation; loanwords; connected speech); writing (scripts,…

Trends and developments in computer applications in Chinese language research are described, focusing on these areas: input of Chinese characters and Chinese corpus; automatic segmentation of Chinese written text in corpus; development of a grammar knowledge base for Chinese words to be used as a resource for text segmentation and corpus…

This collection of essays focuses on historical, structural, lexical, and sociological aspects of Romani and its regional variations. The focus is primarily but not exclusively on oral language. Essays include: "On Typological Changes and Structural Borrowing in the History of European Romani" (Vit Bubenik); "On the Migration and…

Forty-one papers on language research and linguistic theory from the annual conference address these topics: linguistic philosophy; aspects of phonetics and phonology; topics in syntax; aspect; topics in semantics; topics in discourse analysis; sociolinguistics and language contact; historical linguistics; metatheory; and interdisciplinary…

The 50 papers on English language and literature included in this compilation are grouped under the following headings: Old English (editing "Judgment Day," the syntactic types "every man" and "each of men," and continuity and variation in psalm glosses); Present-Day English (speech rate and vowel quantity as compared with Finnish): neutralization…