Discusses how nearly everyone who talks about morality assumes that it is closely linked to language and especially to public discourse. Suggests that teachers of rhetoric and writing courses must develop models that help students resist naive prescriptions and meet the challenges involved in voicing their views responsibly in a diverse and…

Describes a computer program designed to provide language learners with the relevant knowledge to recognize or produce linguistic forms appropriate to a given setting, and to choose one form among a set of similar alternatives. Shows how the influence of pragmatic factors are explored by contrasting learner usage with a computer-based model.…

Introduces the fundamental characteristics of corpus-based research and illustrates such research with a study of a complex grammatical feature in English: linking adverbials (i.e., connecting expressions such as "therefore" and "in other words"). Shows that corpus-based research is useful even with features that cannot be…

Describes a study of undergraduates that investigated the ability of readers of computer-mediated communication (CMC) such as electronic mail to identify the gender of the author when messages were selected for language characteristics identified in previous studies as being associated with both group development and gender. (Author/LRW)

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…