Analyzes spoken and written Hindi and Indian English texts and explores relationship between gender and communication. The features associated with each discourse type in informal female same-sex conversations and in written same-sex dialogues in each language are described. (Author/LMO)

Demonstrates how composition textbook advertisements suggest, project, and perhaps even create an audience. Proposes four different audience-related elements of the ad-object: context, genre, borrowings, and reflexivity. (MS)

Uses recent work in literary criticism to examine the structure of religious discourse. Suggests religious discourse is the use of a certain rhetorical style that conforms to certain rules of underlying structure, but which communicates only to the extent that this structure is appropriate for the application in question. (MS)

Finds that only 70% of sociology textbook paragraphs contain material important for understanding major textbook concepts, that substantive material is not evenly distributed among chapters in the same book, and suggests students be made aware of this as a reinforcement for the importance of selective reading. (MS)

A small-scale study of the cultural discourse of foreign language texts indicated that the two main practices of current texts, introductory dialog and cultural immersion, could delay or even prevent the development of appropriate cultural schemata. (CB)

Presents eight teachers' methods for helping students analyze political rhetoric in an election year. (ARH)

Proposes that prediction and production variables used together tap both text and reader factors and provide a much improved analysis of readability. Finds that this kind of analysis will lead to more specific kinds of pedagogical strategies for teaching writing. (MS)

Examines referential functions of demonstratives in Chinese discourse. Findings indicate that use of the zero-demonstrative in Chinese is the unmarked form of reference roughly corresponding to the referential function of "the" or "it" in English. Demonstratives in Chinese are a marked form of reference roughly corresponding to…

Presents an overview of Michel Foucault's approach to the study of historical systems of thought, arguing that Foucault's view of historical criticism and language-in-use have much to offer rhetorical theory and criticism. Discusses the nature of discourse for Foucault and examines the characteristics of the fundamental discursive datum, the…

Demonstrates that there are different types of interaction in English-as-a-second-language classroom discourse, including "negotiating" and "non-negotiating" interaction which is similar to that in social exchanges in which meaning is negotiated between the interlocuters. (Author/CB)

Identifies various speech styles of English as marked by stance adverbials. Indicates that the discourse functions of stance adverbials differ considerably from the functions suggested by their literal meanings. (JK)

Describes two studies of 25 molecular behavior items relevant to the domain of conversational skill. The first study finds that the behaviors themselves explained 36% of the variance in self-rated competence. The second study indicates that rater effects are identifiable, localized, and therefore, probably manageable. Discusses the use of the…

Shows how the enthymeme can organize a reader's participation in the text, specifically, George Orwell's "Shooting an Elephant." (SRT)

Analysis of spontaneous storytelling samples of deaf 5- to 7-year-olds (N=15), all exposed to manually coded English for some time, differentially showed characteristics more consistent with either English or Sign Language in the language areas of explicit relations, mimed relations, incorporated relations, and English Functors. (CB)

Focuses on courtroom speech as it occurs when a lay person interacts with an attorney and proposes a framework that includes a (1) macrostructural description of direct and cross-examination sequences as contexts that condition the interaction, and (2) microanalytical model that accounts for the effectiveness of the question-and-answer examination…