There is an ongoing debate whether phenomena of disfluency (such as filled pauses) are produced communicatively. Clark and Fox Tree ("Cognition" 84(1):73-111, 2002) propose that filled pauses are words, and that different forms signal different lengths of delay. This paper evaluates this Filler-As-Words hypothesis by analyzing the…

This qualitative study investigates how 90 teachers explored critical curriculum through their reading, analysis and creation of counter advertisements. Located in visual discourse analysis, we designed a study to investigate the question "To what extent can teachers engaged in a critical literacy curriculum talk back to messages of consumerism,…

Commissioner's Rules Concerning the State Plan for Educating English Language Learners (ELLs) states that all school districts that are required to provide bilingual education and/or English as a second language (ESL) programs establish and operate a Language Proficiency Assessment Committee (LPAC). The LPACs are charged with reviewing all…

Proposes an approach to translation theory that includes performative factors and that views the translation process as a context-bound and communicative performance. (SR)

The geolinguistic history of Norden (Scandinavia plus Finland) is reviewed. The shifting political boundaries, particularly of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, have contributed to a complex distribution of language populations that is all the more interesting given the common ancestry of most of the languages involved. The forces of nationalism have…

Discusses the technical vocabulary of computing, noting some early computing words, semantic change, words that define themselves, semantic ambiguity, and analogies to the real world. (SR)

Discusses the use of "there is" and "there are," and recommends notional agreement (agreement of a verb with its subject or of a pronoun with its antecedent in accordance with the notion of number rather than with the presence of an overt grammatical marker for that notion) as a useful approach to deciding which to use. (SR)

Discusses the use of "and" and "or" in technical writing. Suggests that the strict meanings of "and" and "or" are called for in technical writing much more than in ordinary prose. (SR)

Uses a detailed analysis of a single grammatical problem to present the principal commitments and mechanisms of a grammatical theory that assigns a central role to the notion of grammatical construction. The grammatical phenomenon used to introduce construction grammar is the construction that licenses the surprising syntactic and semantic…

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…

Discusses the changing status of Quebec French, as witnessed by laws governing its use and official nature, its actual usage as a communication tool, and attitudes of Anglophones and Francophones toward it. (AM)

Outlines the long history and the dangers of doublespeak--language that misleads, distorts, and deceives. Offers examples of doublespeak in euphemisms, "gobbledygook," and inflated language. Argues that doublespeak is carefully constructed to appear to communicate when its real purpose is to mislead, and notes its relationship to…

Examines the opinions of Fred Newton Scott concerning language usage and asserts that Scott was on the side of the scientific descriptive linguists in asserting that questions of usage cannot be legislated. (SRT)

Introduces a special issue of this journal devoted to bilingualism in texts. Explores the practice of bilingual writing in a wide variety of texts, with emphasis on the historical dimensions of the problem, on increased attention to actual texts and their various contexts, and on some of the details of the practice of bilingual writing. (SR)

Discusses Russian translatology after 1950. Introduces in chronological order some of the most important Russian works and discusses their main points. Deals with Russian approaches to key problems in translation such as equivalence, pragmatic relations, audience orientation, and problems of cultural transfer. (SR)