The ability to integrate online and engage in the mutual learning process with peers and instructors from multicultural backgrounds often poses a challenge for English as a second language (ESL) students. Al-Harthi (2005) and Liu et al. (2010) both shared that cultural and language differences have a negative impact on students' engagement in…

This is an analysis of the author's involvement since 1970 in textbook development for primary schools and adult education in Mozambique, focusing on integrating local cultural traditions, covering the period up to 2013. As main example, addition of the type 8 + 5 = 13 is used around the question of whether textbooks (and curricula) advocate…

One of the domains most commonly affected by autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is communication (American Psychiatric Association, 2000). Language deficits in children with ASD can be as severe as to warrant a label as nonverbal, or characterized by difficulties with the functions of communication. Additionally, deficits in language for children…

Pragmatics is included in one of four communicative competences (Canale, 1980). It is necessary and important to teach pragmatics at school in our globalized world in order to avoid as much as misunderstanding, which is likely to stem from cultural difference. As a result, greater importance should be attached to diverse customs and pragmatics.…

The functional approach, which views language as a potential for meaning in social situations, seems particularly relevant in analyzing the dynamic interaction between text and context. Function determines structure, and the context, which comes to define the function, determines the kinds of text that will be communicative. As the contextual…

The rhetorical functions of history depend on the domain in which history is used, with no connotations of interpretive priority attaching to the social or the academic realm. The appropriation of history in support of social causes as radically opposed as socialism and fascism fuels the temptation to subsume history under ideology, with the…

Reviews the present status of the categories developed by the Writing Research Unit at the University of London for classifying discourse function. (HOD)

Distinguishes between Stanley Fish's idea of interpretive communities and rhetorical communities and asserts that because language is the passport to these communities, schools should seek ways to help students enter the communities to which they seek access. Cites evidence from an international study of writing to support the idea of rhetorical…

The 22 entries in this annotated bibliography represent articles that have lesbian women or gay men as subjects and that deal with a specific verbal or nonverbal communication factor. Topics covered in the entries include patterns of self-disclosure in homosexual and heterosexual college students, interpersonal conflict in homosexual relations,…

Reviews research on the social interaction and negotiation of second language (L2) learners and their interlocutors. This research illustrates ways in which negotiation contributes to conditions, processes, and outcomes of L2 learning by facilitating learners' comprehension and structural segmentation of L2 input, access to lexical form and…

Describes processes of facilitation involved in exolingual conversation (interactions between persons who are dynamically adjusting their respective linguistic performances) between foreign language learners and native speakers, concluding that such behavior is dynamic and creative, and incapable of being described and defined within predetermined…

The foreign language classroom is considered a legitimate and important arena for educational and linguistic research. Research projects developed through a French survey include: an analysis of the foreign language classroom through diary studies; and an analysis of classroom discourse of teachers and pupils. (Author/CB)