In this study, 5-year-olds and adults described scenes that differed according to whether (a) the subject or object of a transitive verb represented an accessible or inaccessible referent, consistent or inconsistent with patterns of preferred argument structure, and (b) a simple noun was sufficient to uniquely identify an inaccessible referent.…

What constitutes a successful lesson? A considerable body of literature examines instructional talk; however, little attention has been directed to situations in which teacher intentions (as captured by lesson plan) are stymied by unanticipated student response and the teacher must instantaneously reevaluate and revise an intended lesson. This…

The globalization of English in Sweden is examined as it takes shape in educational policy and practice. Following in the tradition of a "new wave" of language policy and planning research that emphasizes connections between policy and how it is interpreted by local stakeholders, this investigation focuses on textual data from Swedish…

The swift nature of school reform enacted by the new Conservative-led coalition government has sparked debate over the future of state education in Britain. While the government rhetoric suggests a decisive break with past policies, there is evidence to suggest that these reforms constitute the next stage of a long revolution in education reform,…

A handful of recent incidents hints at an ideological struggle over the use of the English word "fag(got)" and the Spanish word "maricon" in public discourse. This article examines the discursive and ideological struggle over the terms through the comparison of two cases in which Spanish/English bilingual Latinos in the U. S. use what might be…

This study seeks to examine variations in patterns of interactivity as they are displayed in the ongoing discourse construction of high and low self-efficacy learners of Spanish in the context of computer-mediated-communication. The paper specifically focuses on the analysis of synchronous text chats of six university students of Spanish at…

This study explored Mandarin-speaking mothers' referential choice in relation to informativeness. The data consisted of two Mandarin-speaking mothers' natural conversation with their children, collected when the children were between the ages of 2;2 and 3;1. The subject and object arguments of the mothers' utterances were coded for the categories…

A significant body of research articulates concerns about the current emphasis on high-stakes testing as the primary lever of education reform in the United States. However, relatively little research has focused on how children make sense of the assessment policies in which they are centrally located. In this article, we share analyses of…

This article studies discourses within the accreditation of Norwegian higher education conducted by the Norwegian Agency for Quality Assurance in Education (NOKUT), using one concrete case (the accreditation of bachelor programs in nursing). Analysis of policy documents and accreditation reports are influenced by two of Foucault's concepts of…

Education reform continues around the globe, though questioned and critiqued in relation to goals of democratizing educational decision-making. Newspapers are one site of contestation and negotiation where struggles over global reform discourses are contextualized in "obvious" and "natural" local language. In this article, I…

"Establishing a niche" often constitutes a crucial rhetorical move in research proposals and journal papers in various academic disciplines. Research proposals and reports submitted by novice writers may at times be rejected on grounds of their inability to demonstrate a need to carry out research in a suggested area. This genre-based…

Everyday "storied" teacher talk about students and families can reveal and reinforce deficit thinking about racial/cultural "others." Through personal narrative and critical reflection, the author draws on results from a previous investigation into the nature and content of informal teacher discourse to discuss the miseducative potential of…

Cooperating teachers' beliefs of effective supervision of student teachers may play an important role in mentoring practices. By systematically analysing metaphors unconsciously expressed in the discourse of cooperating teachers concerning supervision of student teachers, these beliefs could be made explicit. This study explored: (1) what…

Uncritically applying a community of practice model has become rather prevalent in higher education settings (Lea, 2005). This paper attempts to return to the spirit of Lave and Wenger's earlier (1991) work and to use a community of practice perspective as a heuristic to analyse participation patterns in a final year design studio in the…

Recent research highlights the paradoxical importance of students' being able to check their understanding with teachers and of teachers' constraining student participation. Using quantitative discourse analysis, this paper examines third graders' discursive strategies in initiating such checks and teachers' strategies in constraining them. The…