This study examined the relationship of different measures of syntactic complexity with rated quality for two genres of text produced by middle school students. It was hypothesized that different measures would be associated with distinct aspects of syntactic complexity; words per clause with greater use of structures more typical of expository…

In order to better understand the worth of aesthetic experience in encountering poetry, fresh perspectives are helpful. This paper introduces the reader to modern stylistics: that is linguistic examinations of "the speaker's meaning" in literature and notes such "scientific" approaches to poetry do find common metaphysical ground with leading…

The authors, former middle and high school English teachers, review the rationale for using humor and fun in the classroom and provide detailed descriptions for teaching practices and activities that confer enjoyment and learning for language arts students. Although fun activities, these methods foster vocabulary development, grammar instruction,…

This paper discusses the communicative potentials of Computerized Adaptive Testing. The study is based on a model that offers a set of independent communicative concepts to describe the Genre of an interactive application. This model will be the starting point to analyze the stages of the interaction cycle that are typically inherent to every…

By means of an analysis of the genre of the audit report, this study highlights the respective roles of linguistic and contextual analysis in genre analysis, if the results are to be of maximum use in ESP course design. On the one hand, based on a corpus of current and authentic written auditors' reports produced in a large international Hong Kong…

The present article investigates writer-reader interaction through the construction of writer and reader personae in English and German popular scientific writing by means of first person plural pronouns in subject position. Popular scientific writing only became firmly established as a German-language genre in the last quarter of the 20th century…

The idea that iconic visible gesture had something to do with the origin of language, particularly speech, is a frequent element in speculation about this phenomenon and appears early in its history. Socrates hypothesizes about the origins of Greek words in Plato's satirical dialogue, "Cratylus", and his speculation includes a possible…

Culture, persuasion and language are closely intertwined in intercultural business communication. Hence it is important to study language and persuasion and solicit professional members' views about how effective communication is situated in different cultural contexts. This paper aims to report findings on differences in expectations for good…

The 5th International Conference on Language, Literature and Culture has been hosted by Mehmet Akif Ersoy University (Burdur, Turkey), in cooperation with Çankaya University (Ankara, Turkey) and Süleyman Demirel University (Isparta, Turkey). Our main aim has been to provide a forum for discussion, to facilitate integration in these fields, and to…

This chapter is framed by the three questions related to learning in Practice Theory posed by Johannes Wagner (2008): (1) What is learned?; (2) Who is learning?; and (3) Who is participating in the learning? These questions are addressed in two learning theories: Language Socialization and Situated Learning theory. In Language Socialization, the…

Discusses the differences and similarities between linguistics and stylistics. (AM)

Investigates the types of hyphenated compound nouns (which fill the need for naming new things and expressing new ideas) found in German newspapers and journals. Observes in what particular types of compounds the hyphen is most frequently used and why there is an upsurge in their use. (SED)

The author gives reasons as to why a child's speech may seem to deteriorate after a change of schools, Speech is infinitely adaptive; and the child learns early how to use different styles for different situations. The child, however, may not be aware of this ability. (Author/MS)