Analyzes three Dutch connectives. Argues that the crucial distinction between the pragmatic nature of causal and contrastive connectives should be made on an underlying level, the so-called Basic Scheme, and its relationship to the surface utterance. Establishes a relation between semantic and pragmatic use of a connective, and the ideational and…

Presents a text-linguistic definition of the difference between semantic and pragmatic relations. Shows that the type of context (descriptive, argumentative) appeared not to influence language users' interpretation of clear cases, whereas their judgments of ambiguous relations were influenced by the type of context. Finds informative texts are…

Looks at how frames--expectations of how new information is to be perceived or dealt with in a conversation or other discourse interaction--are set up in metalinguistic discourse throughout the twentieth century, and how the particular way in which the concept of language is framed in introductory textbooks reveals an ideology that limits the ways…

Analyzes shareholder reports of equity mutual funds whose total returns were high in absolute terms, but low in relative terms. Reveals that mixed-return shareholder reports use a nonlinear hyperstructure, dramatize ideas through contrasting narrators, embed a variety of subgenres, and complement verbal with visual discourse in order to make…

Suggests that public doublespeak is an abuse of language, power, and people and that it is an excellent site for investigating and understanding the power of discourse. Discusses motivation for doublespeak, skillful use of language, and deconstructing doublespeak. (RS)

Analyzes the literary questions within the anarchist statement that "the way to the transformation of society was transforming people by education and propaganda." (PA)

Investigates why conversational participants view their partner more positively than do conversation observers. Focuses on self-presentation concerns and cognitive load. Finds that cognitive load and self-presentation concerns both influenced evaluators to be more positive in their social judgments, but were distinctive in that self-presentation…

Examines the burlesque discourse of William F. Buckley Jr. in his books discussing his liberal opponents. Finds that Buckley's work mediates tragedy and comedy in that he accepts and rejects his political antagonists at one and the same time. Discusses the classification of literary genres as frames of acceptance and rejection, which center on…

Deals with the effects of aesthetic quality and argumentational integrity or fairness on the persuasiveness of contributions to argumentation. Basic argumentative dialogs were varied in aesthetic quality via the use of figurative language and in fairness via the addition of faulty, insincere, or unjust arguments.(Author/VWL)

Considers how the Internet is revolutionizing the investment world and how the Securities and Exchange Commission recently passed a rule requiring businesses to use plain English to try and rid disclosures of their traditionally complex and ambiguous language. (SC)

Provides an alternative analysis for the demonstrative system of reference in spontaneous oral discourse. The alternative model is based on interaction between and among participants and is intended to replace the traditional proximal/distal distinction that statistically centers around the speaker as the primary focus of information. (Author/VWL)

Developing literature on late twentieth century U.S. immigration rhetoric has failed to attend adequately to the character of sovereignty claims in contemporary immigration politics. This essay demonstrates the centrality of sovereignty discourse by examining texts created by the state, specifically public affairs videos produced and distributed…

Standardized survey interviewing is a form of institutional talk whose special constraints often conflict with ordinary conversational practices. Although survey manuals tend to recognize the conflict between standardization and respondents' requests for clarification, an alternative strategy for managing troubles in answering--"projective…

This paper presents the main lines of a genre analysis of the macro-structures of research articles (RAs) in applied linguistics, an area that deserves more attention both for pedagogic and research reasons. The analysis is based upon a detailed study of a corpus of 40 RAs, selected as random sets of 10 drawn from four leading journals in the…

In this article, I argue that critical discourse analysis (CDA) can complement and extend existing critical and radical writing pedagogies; CDA provides the theoretical and methodological context that can articulate explicitly the relationship between language practices and politics. I use CDA to analyze texts that circulated on the campus of…