Considers the linguistic choices of candidates in the 1992 presidential election debates as intending to display presidential character and as suggestive of an ability to satisfy voters' needs. Analyzes the three candidates' dimensions of perceived character and ability to address needs. (HB)

Describes why televised vice presidential debates are worthy of more sustained study. Identifies five purposes of vice presidential debates. Examines critically the 1992 vice presidential debate in light of these purposes. Considers the debate format's effects and the argument strategies of the participants. (HB)

Discusses the design and use of the Computer Model for Language Acquisition (COMOLA), a computer program designed to analyze syntactic development in second-language learners by examining their oral utterances. Also compares COMOLA to the recently developed Computer-Aides Linguistic Analysis (COALA) program. (MDM)

Explores the semantics and pragmatics of indefinite descriptions. It is argued that indefinite descriptions are not semantically ambiguous and that their various interpretations may be explained on the basis of general communicative principles. He shows that his proposed analysis can account for generic and predicative interpretations. (45…

Written apologies of deaf students were examined from data obtained from a discourse completion test. Results show that both word choice and word order give a routinized feel to the apologies, in part attributable to American Sign Language; and that strategy choices may reflect a culture-specific view of social offenses. (Contains 44 references.)…

Twelve business telephone conversations were analyzed to determine intercultural differences between speakers of Finnish and speakers of American English. Intercultural differences were found in the use of nontopical elements, "how are you" sequences, and interruption behavior. (Contains 27 references.) (Author/LB)

Considers the role of obligation in counselors' motivation to do their work. Observes that narrative practices related to the humanities, and to religious and spiritual traditions, may help counselors when obligation-based motivation is overwhelmed by the harsher elements of human nature and of the counseling profession. (RJM)

A framework for analyzing and evaluating classroom interaction is proposed that links the social and psychological purposes underlying the communication with resultant discourse in terms of patterns of interaction. (76 references) (JL)

Examined the frequency and type of pragmatic devices used in oral New Zealand English, based on analysis of the Wellington Corpus of Spoken New Zealand English. It found "you know" and "eh" were both found more frequently in working-class than middle-class speech. Other age, gender, and class distinctions are discussed. (45…

Discusses and problematizes the notion of education as a transformative experience for students and teachers. Recounts the literacy history of the author. Discusses the ongoing tension in American culture between difference and unity, and how this tension has influenced composition theory and practice. (HB)

Focuses on the narrative activity between parents and children to coconstruct both the meaning of a spousal narrative dispute as speech event and what it meant that such an episode had been videotaped. The family members codrafted a revised account of their story realm that seems to minimize chaos and maximize order and emphasize that "father…

Nineteen children with developmental delays in the first stage of language learning conversed with their parents in a laboratory setting. Adult utterances were coded for topic, question type, and nonquestions. Child utterances were coded for topic. Child topic continuations were more likely to follow adult continuing questions than any other type…

Argues that children's literature contains strategies to confine texts within a narrow band of sociocultural values. The language of children's fiction offers conventionalized discourse by means of which content is encoded. These texts are symptomatic of how literature is complicit in the ideological construction of Australian childhood. (nine…

Explored how hand gestures help interlocutors coordinate their dialogue. Analysis of dyadic conversations and monologues revealed that requirements of dialogue uniquely affect interactive gestures. Gestures aided the speaker's efforts to include the addressee in the conversation. Gestures also demonstrated the importance of social processes in…

An understanding of where a user is in a research project (the research script) combined with an understanding of the discourse-level features of empirical abstracts (as revealed by lexical clues) can improve information retrieval. An information retrieval system which takes situational and linguistic factors into account is proposed. (47…