A study of native English-speakers' (N=36) and English-as-a-second-language students' (N=60) understanding of conjunctions while reading indicated that more advanced ESL students were more capable of inferencing or using available logical relationships than were intermediate ESL students. (Author/CB)

Reports on a study in which 12 good and 12 poor fourth-grade readers read selections in their original format and with the words in random order; concludes that the results indicate that word identification errors elicited on tests in isolation do not constitute a solid basis for predicting errors in connected text. (ET)

Focuses on cohesion in discourse and connector usage. The article uses a bottom-up approach and evaluates previous studies of learner connector usage, including literature on contrastive French-English connector usage, and hypothesizes an overuse of connectors. It is concluded that learners should be taught the semantic, stylistic, and syntactic…

This study examines the extent to which conceptual change is stimulated and achieved through online discussion in the context of an online graduate course. Transcripts of discussions among 15 graduate students studying assessment issues in mathematics and science education were analyzed using an interaction analysis model developed to assess…

Classroom dialogue is an important influence on students' learning, making the structure and content of dialogue important research variables. An analysis of two sample classroom dialogues using the Thematic and Structural Analysis (TSA) Technique shows a positive correlation between the quality of dialogue structure and the level of student…

Two case studies of students learning to write academic discourse, particularly to maintain cohesion and relevance, are described. The two college students were part of a fourth-year biology class: one was a native English speaker, and the other spoke English as a second language. Both had a good command of spoken English grammar at the sentence…

This paper attempts to identify key, recurring discourse activities and to develop hypotheses about ethnic or subgroup differences in discourse style that could lead to adverse educational outcomes. Data are drawn from ethnographic observation of 50 sharing time ("show and tell") sessions held in a first grade classroom. Different…

Six judges evaluated 20 randomly selected essays from a remedial writing program at the University of Houston to study racial differences in writing and the reasons for such differences. The judges, who were not informed of the race of the writers, examined the essays for the following writing features: free associations, redundancy (ineffective…

Drawing a distinction between lexical and phonological variation reveals differences in sociolinguistic patterning. A comparison of dialects within the Durham, England speech community is discussed on these levels. Phonetic motivation, speech style, and social and situational factors are shown to interact in complex ways in connected speech…

Considers the instructional potential of computer adventure games to develop text-processing skills. Design improvements to increase metacognitive skills are discussed, a prototype adventure game utilizing intact prose is described, and a study using the game with sixth-grade readers of varying ability is reported. (LRW)

This article examines English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) textbook telephone dialogues against the backdrop about what is reported about real telephone interaction based in research in conversation analysis (CA). An analysis of eight ESL textbooks reveals that the fit between what conversation analysts say about the nature of natural telephone…

This article describes a discourse-based language intervention strategy in which children with pervasive developmental disorders are taught to make use of prior linguistic context to participate verbally in structured, interactive dialogues. The paper also describes the use of behavioral methodologies, especially milieu therapies, and the need for…

The use of fictional writing, and in particular fictional dialogue, has gained increasing credibility and popularity within the field of qualitative social science research (Clough, 2002; Denzin, 1997; Tierney, 1998) but research in early childhood education has yet to exploit such methodologies. This article asks: what is meant by the term…

The purpose of this study is to ascertain whether the type of instruction (English as vehicular language and English as a subject) is related to the use of reiteration ties. In the first place, we identified, classified, and counted the number and kind of reiteration ties used by two groups of EFL learners. Secondly, we examined whether…

To determine formal principles of discourse processing and production, a study reviewed theories in various disciplines related to language and/or thought and thereby rationalized an approach of quantitative matrix analysis to the problems caused by discrepant discourse structures encountered in second language learning. Statistical analyses of…