Examines some examples of discourse practices among managers and employees in the customer service department of a large manufacturing firm. Shows how knowledge of the ways that language can both include and exclude people from cultural groups in the worksite can help professional communicators facilitate more effective and responsible…

Offers an explanation for the gap in the paradigm of the verb "be" where amn't is expected to be found. The explanation is base on a combination of multiple-default inheritance and function-based morphology, as embodied in word grammar. (Author/VWL)

Explores some of the possibilities and problems of teaching secondary school students about genocide through the study of language used to describe the event. Focuses on Eastern Europe during the Stalin era when a catastrophe known as the "Holodomor" occurred. (PA)

Six issues of one magazine marketed for girls and one for boys in the Netherlands were analyzed to determine whether contents were sex stereotypic or age specific. Issue content and language in articles on sex and relationships were studied. Both magazines address appearance and relationships with the opposite sex; however, the specific item…

Examines the number of relative clauses and percentages of subordinate clauses in two sets of research reports from "Physical Review." Finds a slight decrease in percentages of relative clauses from the first set (1893-1901) to the second (1980). Finds striking differences in patterns of what relative clauses modify. Suggests a stylistic…

Describes a partially ethnographic study of written discourse based on texts produced on three floors of an academic building, each containing a different academic community. It is proposed that such an approach can be used to study text-community associations, explore inhabitants' textual careers, piece together group-specific sets and systems of…

Describes how a weekly focused journal writing assessment (in which students note any use of language they find interesting, puzzling, amusing, or annoying as well as their response to it) enhances composition students' awareness of how language is used and where. Offers several different advantages of such journal writing. (SR)

Revisits the 1974 Conference on College Composition and Communication's publication of "Students' Right to their Own Language," tracing composition's "professional inability to make good on education's promises to African Americans." Argues that teaching practices should forge new senses of dignity and develop from definitions…

Uses a 1994 lawsuit on behalf of a student being sexually harassed by a classmate, to examine discourse on sexual harassment, suggesting that language is constitutive of sexual norms; discussing prevailing notions of gender, sexuality, and power in schools; and contending that the predominant framework for conceptualizing sexism gives legal…

Considers the primary focus of business communication teachers in classrooms in which English is not the native language of students. Outlines some of the language-related problems that occur when teaching nonnative speakers business communication and calls for a drive to address the issue of acceptable language usage in this context. (SG)

Argues that young Danes are changing the notion of standard Danish. Data gathered in the Danish town of Naestved indicated standard Danish is moving in the direction of low Copenhagen speech. Suggests that young Danes operate with two standards when it comes to language: one for school where excellence is perceived in terms of superiority; and one…

Focuses on discourses in the classroom. Presents three simple steps to ensure that students' voices are heard and valued. Suggests that educators educate themselves about the many existing Discourses (ways of behaving, speaking, reading and writing accepted by specific groups of people), value student contributions by using their Discourses as…

Describes and quantifies aspects of the comparative clauses conjoined with correlatives "than" and "as." The data are compared to show patterns of distribution, their spread across different genres, and the similarity or otherwise of their use in Britain and Australia. Findings show that the scalar comparative clause does not…

Uses content analysis to compare two community newspapers for indices of elaboration identified through various theoretical sources. Traces the relationship of economic development and technological growth to use of elaborative elements in text describing science and technology. Concludes there were strong correlations for breadth and depth in the…

This study investigated how repetition is used in conversation among native speakers of British English, native speakers of Japanese, and Japanese speakers of English. Five interactional functions of repetition (interruption-orientated, solidarity, silence-avoidance, hesitation, and reformulation) were identified, as well as the cultural factors…