Identifies three aspects of intellectual identity that are routinely at stake for academic presenters in discussion periods: their knowledgeability, originality, and level of intellectual sophistication. Identifies and describes questioning practices that support and challenge these desired identities. Considers how this type of discourse analysis…

Studied procedures used by French and English speakers to implement message packaging during sentence formulation. Results provide new evidence for similar and contrasting ways in which speakers of different languages respond to decisions about message packaging. (DR)

Investigates the management of expertise in advice-giving in the calls to a radio advice line. Analyzes how the expert's talk handles the tension between the personal and public dimensions of advice-giving in such a public forum. (HB)

Supports the hypothesis that literal and metaphorical interpretations can result from similar contextual constraints. Finds that a metaphorical interpretation may be selected because a literal interpretation would have been inappropriate and that likewise a literal interpretation may be selected because a metaphorical interpretation would have…

Analyzes negative letters from companies in response to customer complaints. Find striking differences between real letters and textbook examples and instruction. Discusses implications for teaching and research. (SR)

Uses a Burkean approach that focuses on identification arising out of his four master tropes to explicate how campaign communications (strategic or unintentional, from the campaigners themselves or from other sources) in the 1992 presidential campaign produce a development of meanings in which certain issues and images may establish interpretive…

This article discusses professional language and communication in real-life settings and provides a critical overview of research on language for specific purposes. Ideas for renewing this field of study are presented. (78 references) (MDM)

Analyzes Tonya Harding's defense of her image in "Eye to Eye with Connie Chung," applying the theory of image restoration discourse. Finds that the principal strategies employed in her behalf were bolstering, denial, and attacking her accuser, but that these strategies were not developed very effectively in this instance. (SR)

Details a social constructionist reconfiguration of metaphor analysis (SCMA) that is advanced as a powerful, reflexive analytic tool for discourse-centered social constructionist investigations. Applies SCMA to a body of organizational socialization discourse and illuminates a set of prevailing assumptions that both enable and disable…

Discusses how adult second-language acquisition proceeds in, more or less, cultural ways. The discussion focuses on the literature of bilingualism, one individual's recent experiences with Austrian German, and a discourse analysis perspective. (38 references) (GLR)

Attempts to characterize one discourse type of science popularization, the Journalistic Reported Version (JRV) of research articles in science magazines and newspapers. Results indicate that the JRV has an identifiable schema by which the information it contains is structured, and a typical JRV text may have as many as nine schematic structures.…

Tests competing hypotheses concerning the source of cross-linguistic communication difficulty. Subjects rated four versions of Chinese-produced English discourse for comprehensibility. Results indicated that the effect of discourse miscues on comprehensibility was highly significant, whereas there was no significant effect for order of ideas. (45…

Discusses a rhetorical competence theory that is primarily concerned with an abstract understanding of the rhetorical and cognitive processes that underlie rhetorical acts. Presents the theory as an analogical system based on the four master tropes: metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony. Draws upon the systems of analogical reasoning, problem…

Examination of oral proficiency interview discourse suggests that the extent of interviewer accommodation is an overlooked criterion for gauging the authenticity of the interview as simulated conversational interaction and that misplaced accommodation could threaten interview validity and the rating process. (61 references) (Author/CB)

Presents a comprehensive study of a select set of conversational texts to establish the following: (1) the texts are Indian in formal linguistic terms, (2) there are discoursal markers (interactional features) that are Indian or are, at least, "nativized" in Indian English. (seven references) (GLR)