Finds that temporal markers modify the availability of preceding words: segmentation markers like "around two o'clock" and "then" reduce this availability, whereas continuity markers like "and" improve this availability. Supports the hypothesis that segmentation markers lead readers not to integrate new information…

Reports on linguistic features and patterns of coherence in mild and advanced levels of discourse of Alzheimer's patients. Argues and demonstrates that, as the disease progresses, patients' discourse becomes "pregrammatical"--vocabulary-driven and reliant on meaning-based discourse features rather than grammatically based features.…

Studies on classroom interaction have typically focused on relationships between turn-taking patterns and some larger unit of analysis of varying length and nature. However, two questions still left unanswered are how teachers talk differently from students in general and how linguistic variation between two participants might relate to…

Discusses bilingualism in written cuneiform texts from ancient Babylonia and Sumeria. Describes the development of formats and techniques that enabled two or more languages on a single document to coexist harmoniously and productively. (SR)

This report proposes that people often plan their speech acts to affect their listeners' beliefs, goals, and emotional states and that such language use can be modeled by viewing speech acts as operators in a planning system, allowing both physical and speech acts to be integrated into plans. Methodological issues of how speech acts should be…

Uses examples of conversation drawn from a mediation session to show how intentions, as discursive formations, are central not only to both narrative structure and interaction sequences but to the politics of subject position in discourse as well. Discusses the management of subject position in terms of critical coherence points. (SR)

Examines how the collaborative scheme is used to balance the demands of accuracy and efficiency during routine and nonroutine pilot-controller communication. Suggests that several communication problems can be traced to nonstandard collaborative practices that tax controller and pilot attention and memory. (SR)

Explores the relationship between linguistic and conceptual structuring of narratives, focusing on linguistic devices used by German and U.S. narrators to identify transitions in text structure. Identifies and outlines two types of narrative orientation: differentiating events and integrating events. (SR)

Considers if American Ebonics is a different language from English or if it is a dialect of English. Discusses how American Ebonics relates to the larger Ebonics picture. Focuses on the grammatical patterns of Ebonics that diverge the most from standard English. Addresses pedagogical implications. (SC)

Examines relationships of idiomatic communication (including words, phrases, or nonverbal signs) to the interpersonal sentiments of 100 romantically involved heterosexual couples. Finds that loving, commitment, and closeness correlated with the number of idioms expressing affection and referring to sexual matters. Notes that males invented idioms…

Finds in the "Lettres" (1895-98) of Marichette (a Franco-Acadian woman) graphic evidence of the effects of language contact with the socially and economically dominant English on her Franco-Acadian dialect. Explores her penchant for code-switching and relates this aspect of the writer's style to her political commentary. (SR)

Investigates (in two phases) how coherence is cued between turns in conversations. Indicates that (1) turns were consistently paired well beyond chance, suggesting that explicit cues to connections between turns in conversations do exist; and (2) only lexical devices were found significantly more often in coherent than incoherent pairs. (NKA)

Discusses how Type-Token Ratios (TTRs) have been used in a variety of research efforts in speech communication, including studies of the interactions between source credibility, motivation, cognitive states, and context with language use. Describes the two versions of a TTR computation program that are available in BASIC. Presents sources…

Presents an overview (from a broad cultural and historical perspective) of the effect of two languages and cultures on the creation of literature, the cosmopolitanism, and bilingualism of writers, and the effects of the related phenomena of biculturalism and diglossia on the production of literary texts. Shows that bilingualism has been a feature…

Investigates how readers use predication for the interpretation of referents in text and to develop a coherent model of the events described in text. Illustrates how two types of predication (scalar copredication and antipredication) induce readers to disambiguate the referents of definite noun phrases in essentially the opposite way, with…