Contains a "polished" literary essay on Charles Dickens'"A Christmas Carol" that reviews the work's original reception and accounts for its success through a description of its best moments and language. (TB)

Focuses on online newsgroup gender composition and the seeming relatedness between gender roles and group process functions described as task and maintenance. Finds that men far outnumber women as participants in online discussion groups. Notes that results were mixed with respect to the relation of language patterns and group gender composition.…

Looks at Robert Frost's "The Death of the Hired Man" as a "representative anecdote" for Frost's work, which, taken as a whole, shows readers how to lose themselves among the overlooked places and turnings, the topics and tropes, that make up Frost's rhetorical home, the place of everyday human talk and gossip. (TB)

Presents results of a national study in which members of the Society for Technical Communication rated the relevance of 20 selected English-usage principles that were considered to be of limited importance in a previous study involving textbook editors and communication instructors. Shows that all 20 principles were rated as important to…

Contends that professional communication studies could do a better job of teaching effective and responsible language usage to students in a way more coherent to an overall university education and to a healthy civic discourse. Provides lessons from history which suggest that a clear grasp of the theory and practice of genre can help unify…

Introduces the concept of an "integrated" approach to the teaching of drama. Contends that arguments against dualism, which writers have advanced run the risk of moving drama towards an arid form of behaviorism. Uses the writing of Wittgenstein to elucidate the concept of "integration." Concludes that an appropriate approach to teaching drama will…

Examined whether young children (4 years of age) show prosodic changes when speaking to infants. Measured children's word duration in infant-directed speech compared to adult-directed speech, examined amplitude variability, and examined both average fundamental frequency and fundamental frequency standard deviation. Results indicate that…

Discusses the tradition of argument about what forms of metalinguistic discourse are valid, useful, and significant in the era of modern Western linguistics, with particular reference to the argument between linguistic science and prescriptivism. The article emphasizes that linguistic norms are open to challenge and change about what their nature…

Describes using "magic squares" for vocabulary development and assessment, in combination with various everyday Australian words that differ from American usage. (SR)

Discusses the value to film studies of a 1971 publication, "The World Viewed," a serious study of film which was not well received by the field and whose usefulness is still almost unknown. Finds that the author, Stanley Cavell, endeavors to find words of a common language and that his writings exemplify the importance of intuition and…

Compliments the author's son's public high school history teacher who gave him and his classmates an introduction to philosophic thought and a standard of excellence against which to measure the pop psychology of the day. Considers how arguing productively depends on one's grasp of language. Suggests to look to philosophy, history, and literature…

Presents 4 experiments to examine the mechanism behind choice of script type in Japanese writing. Suggests that there are no implicit relationships between semantic images of script types and personal names in Japanese writing. Hypothesizes two tentative cognitive models to explain how Japanese people select a particular type of script from three…

Examines the use of French and Dutch personal and possessive pronouns in the first person plural in internal communication documents. Focuses on the link between text types and the use of inclusive, exclusive, or ambiguous "we." Demonstrates that managers can exploit personal pronouns strategically and that the use of "we" is a…

Considers how social constructions of violence are reproduced within a court-ordered program fostering nonviolence for teens. Explores how awareness of spaces that define one's movements through them is inhibited as well as fostered by particular forms of discursive exchange. Considers what new spaces might be negotiated through an exchange of…

Discusses the processes of language development, revitalization, and intellectualisation against the background of foreign rule and state formation in Lithuania. (VWL)