Cross-cultural investigation of the influence of target-language in infant babbling analyzed 1047 vowels produced by 10-month-olds (N=20) from French, English, Cantonese, and Arabic language backgrounds. Results revealed differences among infants across language backgrounds, with the differences paralleling those found in adult speech in the…

A study of dialogue journal interaction between an instructor of both deaf and hearing community college students revealed that the instructor individualized journal responses according to individual students' language comprehension ability, motivation, learning style, and interests. (CB) (Adjunct ERIC Clearinghouse on Literacy Education)

Reports on a study of written protocols by 147 children, ages 7-14. Comparisons were made between those who were asked to debate an issue (formal discourse) and those who were asked to defend an opinion (natural discourse). Finds that older children were able to use different structures for argumentation and write longer arguments. (CFR)

Discusses the description of English discourse for teaching purposes, drawing on new information from analysis of CANCODE (Cambridge/Nottingham Corpus of Discourse in English). Concludes that language teaching should be based on regularities and patterns, not rules, and that exposure to real, informal language of native speakers, with its…

A study of two contemporary American novels, told in first-person narration, explored the distribution and function of relative clauses in literary narrative. For comparative purposes, data from oral conversation, 2 written expository works, 6 other novels, and 20 short oral narratives were also considered. Three types of relative clause are…

A study investigated the role of the interpreter in doctor-patient communication by analyzing four complete medical interviews at a large urban hospital, each involving one of two Russian interpreters on staff. Both interpreters were native Russian speakers recently immigrated to the United States. Patients were middle-aged and elderly immigrants…

An approach to teaching expository writing in English as a Second Language (ESL) to native speakers of Chinese is offered. It is based on a comparison and classification of rhetorical patterns in the two languages. Chinese rhetoric contains a wide variety of methods of presentation, including both direct and indirect, or metaphoric, forms. It is…

An ethnographic and linguistic study conducted at a high-technology corporation examined decision-making in managerial meetings, focusing on the effects of silences following a proposal on the maker of the proposal. An opinion is that such silences signify a negative evaluation of the proposal, inviting the proposal maker to alter his position.…

An analysis of the use of language in a social service context using microethnographic research techniques is described. The study examined a single interaction between a welfare caseworker and a client as they address the client's employment and educational options. The interaction was videotaped and a segment of just over a minute was analyzed…

An analysis of oral and written discourse focuses on the hypothesis that marked structures serve to code discourse boundaries and signal the advent of new discourse units. The hypothesis is examined against three independent sets of data: (1) discourse from a larger study, in which subjects provided oral or written narrative descriptions, in…

Eighteen works, including summaries, are cited in this bibliography. Topics include the nature of medical encounters; power, gender, and discourse change in physician-patient interviews; women's language in the medical interview; nurses' communication with physicians; and language patterns in therapeutic change. (JP)

This article presents two developmental studies of discourse patterns in student writing. Results from two projects are presented: (1) the NORDWRITE project (1986-1989; Norwegian argumentative material from grades eight and nine) and (2) a comparison of argumentative writing in grades eight and nine with foreign language argumentative writing at…

Extracts from financial reports broadcast on two British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) radio channels are analyzed for cognitive structures that affect the conceptual organization of this discourse type. The approach used for the analysis is based on two assumptions in the relationship of communication and cognition. These are: (1) financial…

A Computer-Assisted Language Analysis System (CALAS) was developed as a syntactic and semantic analyzer of machine readable text in English. CALAS includes a set of computer programs, an algorithm for implementation, and human editors who assist the computer and its programmer in the processing of data. Data analysis is accomplished in three…

This report shows that verbal routines are not easily acquired by adult second language learners and it identifies some of the specific problems they have in acquiring routines. Empirical data concerning the role of verbal routines, (that is, fixed expressions which have been acquired as memorized wholes), in adult second language performance are…