Examined two series of fantasy play interactions, one in which a young child succeeded in directing the play of her peers and one in which a child was less successful at similar influence attempts. A theory of double-voiced discourse illustrates how dual-orientated talk facilitates children's efforts to influence peers during fantasy play. (54…

Examined the use and importance of lectal power among candidates interviewed for admittance to a teacher education college in multilingual Singapore. At the syntactic level, the competent or incompetent use of syntactic features such as tag nouns chosen by the interviewees revealed the extent of the lectal power in their possession. (27…

An Athabaskan narrative, told by a village storyteller to two native students (one with language-learning disability and mild hearing loss) was studied. Analysis of prosodic and structural patterns revealed a spatially rather than temporally organized narrative. The assessment method was felt to be sensitive to interfaces between cultural…

Examined 37 written and oral narrative pairs produced in a film retell task by college-level learners of English as a Second Language. Results found a developmental pattern in the distribution of tense/aspect morphology with respect to narrative structure. (contains 41 references) (MDM)

Contributions of the methodological procedures and principles offered by Labov and Gumperz are evaluated, especially regarding the problem of observer effect in community-level investigations of linguistic minorities. The need for accountability and openness in data collection and analysis procedures is emphasized. (39 references) (Author/LB)

It is shown that, although native English speakers routinely use subject-verb-object questions for specific functions and in informal discourse, this question form rarely appears in textbooks or presentations used in English-as-a-Second-Language classrooms. Thus, language presented in these classes may not expose students to the complete range of…

The prediction that young Chinese- and English-speaking children should exhibit parallel performance in their use of null arguments was investigated using an elicited production task. The hypothesis that early English allows null subjects was upheld; the argument that early English is a discourse-oriented language like Chinese was not upheld. (26…

A multidimensional approach analyzes the linguistic characteristics of 26 Somali spoken and written registers. Somali represents a different language type, and no single dimension adequately describes the relations among registers. Findings are related to previous analyses of English, Tuvaluan, and Korean. (27 references) (Author/LB)

Ways are discussed that education and the discourse practices it authorizes can routinely repress, dominate, and disempower language users whose practices differ from the norms that it establishes. The ideas of two key theorists, Bourdieu and Bhaskar, are linked and applied to such issues as schooling, high status language, and minority discursive…

Reports a study that examined the discourse of a constructivist staff development process which helped teachers examine their beliefs and introduced them to research-based ideas. Research-based alternatives were offered to teachers based on a review of videotapes of teachers' classroom instruction. The process created a constructivist, sharing…

Hyperfluency, defined as discourse that is inappropriate and incompetent in the target audience's estimation, and its relationship to composition pedagogy are discussed. It is argued that hyperfluency can signal the growth of an individual's linguistic resources. (16 references) (Author/LB)

Twelve papers on codeswitching are reviewed briefly in this introduction to a special journal issue. The following topics are covered: borrowing versus codeswitching, codeswitching in a political discourse context, situational uses. (16 references) (LB)

Examines how various reading and writing activities interacted over time as college students composed from multiple sources. Discusses the linear and nonlinear nature of the restructuring and composing process. Finds that individual reading and writing activities served unique yet partially overlapping functions over the course of the task.…

Suggests focusing historical narratives explaining composition's emergence and search for an identity by concentrating on the changing face of rhetoric within institutional settings. Investigates the cultural history of the term "process." Explores what the unacknowledged cultural values "process" bring to reading and writing and the…

A study of the use of phrase-terminal extension particles in Montreal (Canada) French analyzed composition, sociodemographic patterns of occurrence, and discourse functions of 76 particle types in 4 distinct classes. (MSE)