The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted a renewed interest in intergenerational letter and email writing. Evidence shows that expressive writing, including letter writing, has a number of benefits including improved literacy and perceived well-being, and it can also facilitate a deep connection with another person. This scoping review provides an…

The letter of recommendation (LOR) is a stylized form of direct sponsorship, a rhetorical appeal that confers favor on a person or object in keeping with the writer's - or sponsor's - character, authority, and expertise. In response to Swales's call to "unveil" the rhetorical features of occluded genres, this research employs a move-step…

Contemporary international migration produces a great deal of bureaucratic writing activity. This article reports on a study of one bureaucratic literacy practice--correspondence--of 25 international migrants in the United States. Contextual and practice-based analysis of data collected through literacy history interviews shows that (a) by virtue…

Using rhetorical genre theory and research on reported speech, this study investigates the citation practices in 81 forensic letters written by paediatricians and nurse practitioners that provide their opinion for the courts as to whether a child has experienced maltreatment. These letters exist in a complex social situation where a lack of…

This article reports on forensic letters written by physicians specializing in identifying children who have experienced maltreatment. These writers face an extraordinary exigence in that they must provide an opinion as to whether a child has experienced abuse without specifically diagnosing abuse and thus crossing into a legal domain. Their…

Presents a detailed description of a scribe and his client in Mexico producing a letter through "joint composition," a term used to refer to letter-writing episodes involving two or more active participants. Shows how the participants negotiated their points of view and pooled their knowledge to produce a specific type of document. (PA)

Describes the structural and content characteristics of actual employment rejection letters (sent following job screening interviews) and analyzes their impact on applicants' feelings about themselves and about the letters. Concludes that few of the letter characteristics affected applicants' feelings about themselves, but that a number were…

Describes a study in which nine-year-old children wrote persuasive letters to two individuals and then participated in an oral task designed to determine their competence in listener adapted communication. (FL)

Explores the contexts of the letters citizens send their legislators, focusing exclusively on their value. Suggests that the letters about political issues and personal concerns sent by citizens are of great value to both the writer and the reader. (SKC)

Presents a case study of a fourth-grade student who learned to participate in the literacy community of her classroom by writing letters. Claims that letter writing aided this student in gaining confidence and skill. Discusses implications of this study for forging a new pedagogy of writing. (HB)

Critical discourse analysis of a 75,000-word corpus of newspaper articles, editorials, and letters to the editor reveals the presence of a cosmopolitan worldview-frame and its effects on representations of gun owners in the United States. This cosmopolitan worldview, which includes cultural frames of reliance on others, specialization, risk…

The emphasis on the individual in Western culture has blinded us to how social relationships affect literacy acquisition and, conversely, how literacy transforms these relationships. This article deals with the literacy practices, specifically, letter writing, of Lithuanian immigrants who arrived in the United States during the end of the 19th…