Describes an exercise of parallel text analysis or production in German as a foreign language, which demonstrates to the students that contextual factors influence the selection of specific variants. The variants must be chosen out of so-called macroprogrammes. A macroprogramme lists the linguistic and extralinguistic means a language offers to…

Reports on an empirical study of the politeness strategies in Chinese business correspondence and considers its implications in teaching business Chinese. The study investigated 20 examples of business correspondence by native speakers of Chinese. By analyzing linguistic/stylistic features of the letters in two predesigned situations, the study…

Interviewed German and American employees to investigate cultural differences at the workplace, examining their views on culture clash and collecting examples of situations involving miscommunication due to cultural differences. Employees described differences in such areas as work atmospheres, working hours, thinking styles, greetings, work pace,…

George Orwell, in the essay "Politics and the English Language," criticized pretentious doublespeak and technobabble that numb the consciousness and hide political power plays. Judith Butler defends the "nuanced" prose of her fellow postmodernists as necessary to convey the complexity of their thoughts. Stephen Roney contrasts the two and…

The use of debate as a technique for teaching integrated skills in English as a Second Language (ESL) is discussed and recommended. The paper argues that debate meets real-world communication needs and reflects a particular practical style of language use (persuasion), meeting expectations of the native speaker. Use of the approach in an…

Drawing on Mikhail Bakhtin's "Dialogic Imagination" and Henry Louis Gates'"Signifying Monkey," an analysis of an African American student's essay reveals codes that are distinct to African Americans. Bakhtin's theory alerts scholars to the extent to which language is a social phenomenon. Ambiguous and heteroglossic, it reflects…

The use of rhetorical voice in literature and news reporting is examined and its implications for classroom study of literature are discussed. Analysis is based on Mikhail Bakhtin's theory of the novel and the definition of "voice" as an identifiable social role or position that a character enacts, and "ventriloquation" as the…

An analysis of the compound verb system of Persian marks constructions euphemistically by producing an indirect order effect and by alternating different compound and simple forms that bear the same denotation but are governed by a rigorous code of ethics. What really carries the semantic reference in these cases is the process of construing…

This paper describes a collaborative project that sought to combine teacher development and illuminative research. Eight teachers on a general English course, working in pairs, observed each other's lessons and then held discussions, which were recorded and analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. Published coding systems were used by the…

The conversational narratives of 17 Japanese children aged 5 to 9 were analyzed using stanza analysis. Three distinctive features emerged: (1) the narratives are exceptionally succinct; (2) they are usually free-standing collections of three experiences; and (3) stanzas almost always consist of three lines. These features reflect the basic…

A review of South Korean elementary school textbooks and teacher's guides suggests three characteristic aspects of language and literacy education, including: (1) that two new language styles are appearing in textbooks, distinguishing the educated from the uneducated in everyday life, and that children learn formal speech style in the first grade…

A study examined the effects of three presentational modes--transcription, audiotape, and videotape--on raters' evaluations of male and female speakers using a powerless, powerful, or mixed speech style. A powerless speech style was characterized by the use of message elements such as qualifiers, tag questions, polite forms, and disclaimers. A…

Some aspects of the field of lexicology in general, and of English lexicology in particular, are examined in light of current linguistic theory. Definitions of lexicology, its role in linguistics, the concept and nature of lexical competence, the relationship of grammar and lexicon, and the process of lexicalization are reviewed. Conversion and…

Before students can select words effectively for speaking, they must understand the value of word choice and the difference between written and spoken language. Once students appreciate effective word selection, they can label their own strengths and weaknesses in language and improve significantly by reading, listening, experimenting, and using a…

Many theoreticians have indicated that a major task of the nonpresumptive rhetor is to gain presumption, thereby shifting the burden of proof to the opposition. Rhetorically, Martin Luther King, Jr., sought to effect this shift in the burden of proof through the use of hierarchies of values. At the top of his value system was the love of God. The…