Explores the ethical issues involved in transcribing. Argues that the challenge for the transcriber is to produce transcriptions that are accurate and readable but that are also reflexive in how they make explicit to the reader the constructed nature of written talk, a role giving rise to the problematic nature of accuracy and readability. (27…

Suggests that it is now possible to make sense of texts, even of their linguistic parts alone, without having a clear idea of what the other features might be contributing to the meaning of a text. Emphasizes that it is no longer possible to understand language and its uses without understanding the effects of all modes of communication that are…

Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, November 1970, in Los Angeles, California. (DS)

Offers a critical review of arguments for and against T-unit analysis in second language research. Maintains that T-unit length is a valid measure of syntactic complexity and a true index of overall development in second language acquisition. (PMJ)

To provide some perspective on current issues and challenges concerning the role of grammar in language teaching, methodological trends of the past 25 years are reviewed. A proposal for a decision-making strategy is provided for resolving the controversy regarding how much grammar one should teach to language learners. (VWL)

Ten objective measures of writing proficiency were used to evaluate advanced ESL students' compositions. Only those objective measures taking the absence of errors into account discriminated among holistic evaluations of the compositions by experienced ESL teachers. (PMJ)

Suggests that for improving syntactic fluency and the overall quality of compositions, exercises should be based on generative rhetoric. These exercises in which students supply the content of the sentence from a list of suggested structures are superior to sentence-combining exercises that provide the student with all the information. (PMJ)

Compares holistic scoring of nonnative writing in English with multiple trait assessment and scoring. (JL)

Investigated the online processing strategies used by a sample of nonnative speakers of English who were asked to give the meanings of selected common idioms presented in a written context. Data were gathered using a think-aloud procedure; participants were asked to verbalize their thoughts as they arrived at the meaning of the idioms. (Author/VWL)

Discusses the question of how English-language learners (ELLs) experience writing by probing the effects of researcher positionalities on inquiry practices. Explores positionality through experiences with the discourse of contrastive rhetoric. (Author/VWL)

Examines the speech communities associated with computer-mediated communication (CMC). Summarizes results from research and adds a critical perspective by questioning who is advantaged and disadvantaged by CMC. Brings these concerns to bear on the application of CMC to distance education, raising questions about its use in teaching English as a…

Argues that there are very good reasons for developing discourse grammars for second-language (L2) teaching. Exemplifies the criteria for moving from sentence-based grammar to the discourse level. The criteria are based on pedagogical and descriptive problems in grammar that sentence-based approaches cannot adequately deal with. (Author/VWL)

Paper presented to the staff of the English Language Branch--Defense Language Institute, Lockland Air Force Base, Lockland, Texas, 1973. (HW)

Analyzed the spoken and written language of Caribbean college students who consider themselves to be native speakers of English. Discusses the students' linguistic self-perception as well as the morphosyntactic and discourse features that emerge when they write in standard English. The study suggests that anglophone Caribbean students should be…