A study of the discourse of formal instruction (inductive and deductive presentations) of two foreign language teachers is reported that suggests formal instruction can involve discursive negotiation resulting in the coconstruction of understanding between teacher and student. The discursive mechanism, "prolepsis," is discussed. (32…

Presents analysis of argumentative discourse by students, revealing that it involves both dialogical and argumentative operations. Reports that dialogical and argumentative operations are functionally linked. Concludes that the percentage of markers of utterance involvement, axiological forms, and modalizations is much higher in argumentative…

Studies the construction of coherent narrations of events in a picture storybook by children and adults. Applies a causal network discourse analysis. Analyzes the structure and content of the network representation of the main character. Reveals differences in content and structure of the narratives. (HB)

Studies how readers process text in the absence or presence of a relevant schema. Analyzes the results of a study in which subjects were required to read vague texts. Indicates that schemas affect on-line comprehension and that reading without a schema involves certain key strategies. (HB)

Analyzes the requests for clarification used by instruction receivers. Discusses insights about the interactive nature of communication success and failure with regard to route directions. Provides validation for a model of message comprehension. (HB)

Presents a language approach to outgroup homogeneity and discrimination between gender groups. Finds outgroup discrimination was confined to female respondents; outgroup discrimination resulted more from repetition of biased statements than from differential abstraction; and discrimination was strongest for topics for which the most distinctive…

A description and analysis of domain theory is outlined and evaluated to highlight the difficulties of using domain theory as a basis for research into variability in interlanguage. (34 references) (VWL)

Discussion of discourse modeling in artificial intelligence and computational linguistics focuses on a dialog model that incorporates the illocutionary aspects of information-seeking dialogs. The relevance of a theory developed for the analysis of written texts--Rhetorical Structure Theory--is explained, and future work is discussed. (25…

Outlines a model of classroom discourse analysis that provides evidence with which to establish the operation of two discourses. A secondary purpose is to demonstrate how the method of analysis can expose some significant limitations in much educational practice and to point to ways of addressing those limitations. (32 references) (VWL)

Studies the role of four rhetorical elements in generating shared meaning in two different samples of public relations writing. Finds that narratives were particularly important because they provided a comprehensive, compelling framework for belief and thus contributed greatly to the shared meaning created by writers and readers. (SR)

Explores the Indian variety of English from the point of view of the discoursal strategies speakers adopt in verbal interaction. In particular, the paper examines how discoursal markers function in the Indian English conversational context. (29 references) (GLR)

Argues that organizations routinely engage in values advocacy (the appeal to shared cultural values) to perform three distinct functions: (1) to enhance the organization's image; (2) to deflect criticism of the organization and/or its policies, products, and services; and (3) to establish value premises that can be used in later discourse. (SR)

Describes research on the rhetoric of mine disasters, analyzing discourse among government agencies, Congress, unions, operators, and lobbyists. Offers rhetorical, technical, and ethical analyses of the technical documents resulting from mine disasters. (SR)

Addresses the argument that access to Universal Grammar in second-language acquisition implies an asymmetrical knowledge of ungrammaticality. The author attempts to prove that the asymmetry position is conceptually defective and that the evidence for it is inconclusive, inappropriate, and contradicted by other data. (12 references) (Author/CK)

Reviews studies and tests that show how discourse analysis has contributed to the theory, research, and development of language testing, covering the relations among discourse analysis and competence and testing theory; research on language tests and tasks; and task development. A 60-citation unannotated bibliography is included. (CB)