Defines the concepts underlying the semiotics of written texts and emphasizes the distinction between literary production (discourse) and technical writing (message), the former stressing the poetic and expressive functions, the latter the referential function. Describes the language of "messages" as based on unambiguous terms that reflect the…

The relationship between writing and reading linking prescriptive and contrastive rhetoric, textual discourse analysis, ESP text research, and psycholinguistics and reading is examined. The chief axioms stressed for writers are planning and using discourse devices. How these can be translated into reading strategies is demonstrated. (PMJ)

Examines the relationship between syntactic complexity and quality ratings of narrative and argumentative writing of students in grades 6, 10, and 12. (HOD)

Suggests, based on observations of children in a nursery school drawing activity, that what children understand about drawing is intimately tied to what they know of drawing activities undertaken in a particular social context. (FL)

Investigates the relationship of reading ability and age to children's recall of expository text after reading and analyzes children's sensitivity to text structure. (MKM)

A schema-based framework for representing knowledge and prose organization was studied. Testing of a script pointer and tag hypothesis confirmed that memory discrimination is better for atypical actions in a passage than for typical script actions and that there is no memory discrimination for very typical actions. (SW)

The four parts in this section present: (1) an advertisement based on the literary style of Emile Zola; (2) exercises designed to practice expressions of similarity and difference; (3) the transcript of a discussion on the problem of swamps; and (4) variations on the shopkeeper-customer dialogue. (AM)

Presents a language teaching method designed to increase communicative competence through an application of speech act theory and the use of dialogs and the source language. (AM)

References to the study of behavioral organization of face-to-face interaction are arrranged in alphabetical order by author. A subject classification of works in the bibliography is appended. (EJS)

Examines the role of redundancy, as a universal linguistic feature, in language learning and teaching. (Author/AM)

This study documents the instances of code-switching and interference in the speech of a bilingual child living in Rome, Italy, with his American mother and Italian father. (CFM)

Explicates how teachers' control over classroom discourse patterns during teaching-learning activities influences the types of knowledge children create and acquire. Examines the relationship between two types of teacher-child discourse commonly used in early childhood classrooms and the semiotic tools children appropriate through participation in…

Used message semantics networks to analyze Year 1 teachers' questions of students during small group sessions. Found that although questions were common, they were used to prompt information already known to the teacher. Results suggest that questioning style may help or hinder children's learning and that semantic networks may be used to evaluate…

Analyzes the ways in which language use reflects alignments and symmetry between people who are well-acquainted and communicate via electronic mail in Greek. Focus is on certain discourse features that form the conventionalized style of e-mail and frame contextualization cues, particularly certain patterns of code-switching and style shifts. (MSE)

This article analyzes how semantic differences between English and Japanese affect the discourse when Japanese speakers engage in negotiation in English, and how and to what degree English-language proficiency affects discourse. Results of the study show the importance of language and cultural knowledge in cross-cultural negotiation. (Auth/JL)