This article offers a critical analysis of the language socialization of Spanish-speaking families in a Scout group in Metro Vancouver. Using tools of discourse analysis, the article examines the language use patterns of the participants, particularly focusing on the language ideologies to which they oriented themselves and the identities indexed…

Most academic science educators encourage teachers to provide their students with access to more authentic science activities. What can and do teachers say to increase students' interests in participating in opportunities to do real science? What are the discursive "resources" they draw on to introduce authentic science to students? The purpose of…

This case study analyses two written texts produced by an ESL learner either side of a five-week genre-based teaching intervention. The second text was judged to be of a much higher quality by two independent markers in a previous study. The question arising is: what exactly has improved? The analytical tools of systemic functional linguistics are…

Classroom research has largely focused on an "instructional discourse" in local classroom contexts where teachers and students interact about subject knowledge. Few studies have been conducted, however, to examine "regulative discourse", which is the precondition for the transmission of subject knowledge. In this article,…

Utilizing a critical race theory (CRT) framework, I conduct a rhetorical and discursive analysis of data from a study of Utah Latino/a educational and political leaders. In analyzing how participants advocate closing the achievement gaps that affect Latina/o and Chicana/o students, I find that participants' political discourse is shaped by…

In many English as a Second Language (ESL) programs across the United States classroom teachers, ESL specialists, and bilingual paraprofessional share responsibility for teaching English language learners. Expectations of "shared responsibility" are constructed and negotiated through local discourses. This study explores how the roles and…

Social justice, equality and inclusion are complex and inter-linked concepts and feature prominently in Scottish social policy rhetoric. This paper begins with an overview of the discourses surrounding these concepts and the ways in which they are used in Scottish education policy, which, in general, is founded on principles of universalism. The…

Robert L. Scott's article "On Viewing Rhetoric as Epistemic" exemplifies agonistic-transcendent rhetoric in that it sought to revalue "rhetoric." However, as Scott has already noted, his project was ultimately compromised by his not revaluing "epistemic" in conjunction. Scott's article is criticized with respect to…

The distinction between literal meaning, the domain of semantics, and inferred or implicated meaning, the domain of pragmatics, is examined. Grice's (1975) theory of implicated or conveyed meaning as part of an overall account of cooperative communicative behavior is evaluated. A range of data is presented which challenges Grice's theory.…

Topic changes in conversation are governed by principles of discourse organization. These principles are highly specified and are identical to those responsible for the organization of memory structures. Of the three levels of organization: (1) universally controlled organization; (2) culturally controlled organization; and (3) idiosyncratic…

Using preliminary data from studies of the 1980 debates between the presidential candidates, this paper responds to the argument that presidential debates are not debates at all but rather "joint news conferences." The paper first contends that the encounters of the candidates were "real" debates since they conformed to the…

In arguing for a functional rather than contextual definition of rhetoric, this paper explains that an addressed audience and not a public setting is what makes the concept of "rhetorical quality" meaningful. The paper then notes that the defining characteristics of rhetorical quality are goal orientation and strategy, and it reasons that…

Applies Kenneth Burke's "Five Dogs" segment in "Language as Symbolic Action" to analyze Mother Teresa's Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech. (MM)

Examines self-portrayal in fictional and nonfictional written discourse. Argues that two common terms for describing self-representation--ethos and persona--are often conflated but that there are good historical and conceptual grounds for maintaining a distinction between them. (MS)

Examines Chaim Perelman's new rhetoric, concluding that Perelman believes a rhetor linguistically creates a presence by first analyzing how the audience thinks and acts, referring to what the audience holds to be true, and then entering into communion with the audience by expressing the thoughts of the audience. (RAE)