Examines the construction of community on a women's ice hockey team, using data from fieldwork and interviews with one Canadian team. Results indicated that the locker room provided a space where players came together as hockey players and women. A common focus on hockey united the diverse group. (SM)

Reports the results of a three-year qualitative observation study of a Japanese foreign language in the elementary school (FLES) program. The observation was analyzed from the sociocultural point of view led by Vygotsky, which treats learning through social guidance and motivation as central to an account of language development. (Author/JL)

Employs the Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST) analytic framework to produce pictorial representations of lengthy Chinese and Australian news journal text. Results demonstrate the feasibility of using the RST framework in this type of analysis. (Author/VWL)

Examines the discussion of results in medical research articles to determine the strategies used by the writers to persuade the readers that their research is either new or a development of previous work and that their study is a contribution to a specialist field. Twenty-four research articles were analyzed using Swales moves analysis as well as…

Offers a commentary on the studies of Kyratzis and Guo, Goodwin, Nakamura and Cook-Gumperz and Szymanski comprising the special issue of this journal. The special issue is situated in the history of gender studies in developmental pragmatics. The inadequately recognized role of cultural factors is highlighted. (Author/VWL)

Examines the "living dialogues," or the complex interplay between discourses, among three children, their families, and teachers to recontextualize the often polarized debates about literacy instruction. Argues the creation of more inclusive school literacy practices requires a consideration of how discourses function within and across homes,…

Contrasts differences in language use across the Japanese workplace, including women's speech. Examines what is referred to as "manifestations of power" among Japanese working women. Explores "resistance to subordination" among female university students who have not yet entered professional or domestic life. Comparison of the…

Argues that there are very good reasons for developing discourse grammars for second-language (L2) teaching. Exemplifies the criteria for moving from sentence-based grammar to the discourse level. The criteria are based on pedagogical and descriptive problems in grammar that sentence-based approaches cannot adequately deal with. (Author/VWL)

Explores the usefulness of the criterion of authenticity for the selection and evaluation of English for academic purposes materials. Using a student questionnaire and techniques of discourse analysis based on Halliday's concepts of field, tenor, and mode, the levels of difficulty and relevance of materials using four media was investigated.…

Explores the gendered nature of talk in one multicultural, eighth-grade classroom, discussing how talk is an integral part of engendering. Looks at how the genderlects "Boy Talk" and "Girl Talk" contributed to classroom inequities. Offers suggestions to teachers for ways to validate and utilize the girls' discourse practices to their advantage,…

Discusses gendered-discourse in the foreign language classroom. Presents research suggesting that boys do not necessarily always dominate and that girls create learning opportunities for themselves and are able to utilize those provided by the teacher. (Author/VWL)

Suggests that it is appropriate to view the community college as a discourse community in its own right, and as a part of the larger discourse community of higher education. Argues that this shift in judgment might increase perceptions of community college competence, thus moving them into positions of legitimate power. (Contains 14 references.)…

Examines how the voluntary national U.S. history standards contained within the "National Standards for United States History: Exploring the American Experience" were presented in selected U.S. newspapers. Uses ethnographic content and critical discourse analytic methodologies. Indicates that most newspapers presented a fragmented and inflated…

Project-based curricula have the potential to engage students' interests. But how do students become interested in the goals of a project? This article documents how a group of 8th-grade students participated in an architectural design project called the Antarctica Project. The project is based on the imaginary premise that students need to design…

Deliberative discussions are grounded in particular conceptions of democracy and are intensely difficult to learn to lead. This study uses a sociocultural lens to examine the cases of two elementary school teachers as they worked to foster deliberation in their classrooms. Speech code theory is used to uncover conceptual tools the teachers used as…