In three experiments, the authors investigated whether statistical language influences readers' interpretations of research results. Although the authors argue that "significant" language changes should not be mandated for quantitative research studies in scientific journals, if such changes are mandated, then use of the term "statistical" is…

Reports the results of an investigation of the variable use of the definite and indefinite articles by 18 Chinese learners of English. A referential communication task was used to elicit samples of the speech of these learners. Analysis shows an overall rate of 78% suppliance of articles in contexts where a native speaker would use a definite or…

Five ethnographic studies located genres of public discourse most central to university students, thus enhancing understanding of those genres as a significant influence on students' use of language. The problem of divergence between school-based genres and genres of public discourse were addressed. Results highlighted are audience roles, sites of…

Studied whether the language spoken affects the way subjects think about time in 3 experiments involving: (1) 26 English-speaking and 20 native Mandarin-speaking college students; (2) 25 bilingual students; and (3) 70 native English speakers. Results suggest that language is a powerful tool for shaping thought about abstract domains and habitual…

This study investigated the dialectal sensitivity of the T-unit as a nonbiased alternative for assessing the oral grammatical skills of school-age, nonstandard English speakers. Analysis of language samples from 28 9-year-old children (half African-American) revealed no significant differences between groups, suggesting that the T-unit may be a…

Explores the use of English in Cypriot Greek, focusing on extensive data from informal conversations between members of a Limassol family. Suggests that instances of language alternation can be accounted for in terms of discourse analytic categories such as the distinction between local and global phenomena and the tri-partite scheme of…

Investigates the roles of "just," a lexical item that is among the most frequent in distinguishing academic speech data from roughly comparable written data in the Michigan Corpus of Academic English. Concordance analysis showed that "just" frequently co-occurs with metadiscourse and hedging; a closer functional analysis in…

The author describes how the language of labels and her own cultural biases affect how she approaches teaching her students with disabilities. The author examines how the mythopoetic narratives of our past force us to examine the underlying assumptions of our culture that are expressed within our language and how understanding our own linguistic…

Research in English for Academic Purposes has begun to show that non-native speakers of English have much difficulty in English academic listening at American universities. Chinese students, who are from a very different educational system and cultural environment, experience special challenges in English academic listening. This paper focuses on…

Recent trends in cognitive science have not made scientific literacy easier to attain, but they have made the practices through which educators meet its challenges more interpretable. Traditionally, cognitive scientists viewed knowledge as a set of propositions comprised of classical concepts, thought as logical inference and language as a literal…

This article explores the effects of certain discourses as they relate to sexual harassment in a Swedish higher education setting. Using a semiological perspective, the author analyzes notions of existence, range, prevention, and stability in order to demonstrate the way they aim at signifying a limited and, from a bureaucratic point of view,…

In this paper we propose the construct of discursive identity as a way to examine student discourse. We drew from the work of Gee (2001, Review of Research in Education, 25, 99-125) and Nasir and Saxe (2003, Educational Researcher, 32(5), 14-18) to consider the multiple contexts and developmental timescales of student discursive identity…

This article focuses on the dynamics of language in the context of mathematics. The interaction of everyday words and specialized mathematics vocabulary impacts students' development of mathematical understanding. (Contains 4 tables and 1 figure.)

Developing academic, or school-based, literacy poses a significant challenge for many students, because the language through which academic subjects are presented is markedly different from the social language that students use in everyday ordinary life. This article focuses on one aspect of academic language, the functions of nouns and nominal…

This study investigated the effects of teaching mothers of low socioeconomic status (SES) to use decontextualized language during storybook reading with their preschool-age children. A multiple baseline design across behaviors and participants evaluated the effects of the intervention for five dyads. Mothers' and children's use of decontextualized…