Preliminary results are described of an attempt to analyze the talk of the Finnish deaf signing community from the perspective of conversation analysis (CA). CA is described as an empirical approach to the study of spoken conversation deriving from the field of ethnomethodology, which itself emerged as a reaction to traditional sociology in the…

Readers' ability to identify and accept relational propositions (RPs) in a text may influence their judgments of text coherence. Types of text comprehension were defined in two ways: (1) according to whether an RP was immediately identifiable, identifiable after further reading, or not identifiable; and (2) according to whether the proposition was…

Text linguistics, a recent development in the study of language, moves the focus of inquiry from the sentence to the text and examines texts as acts of communication rather than individual, static sentences. It investigates textuality rather than grammaticality, the relationships between sentences and between text and context that make text…

Television evangelist Jimmy Swaggart's public speech of apology following revelations of his sexual relationship with a prostitute provides the basis for a study of the rhetorical genres of apologia and compliance-gaining discourse. Apologia is public speech used by prominent persons to repair damage done to their reputations by allegations of…

The study of conflict and its management is diverse in that it involves many academic disciplines, sub-disciplines, and specific situations. One aspect of this diversity can be found in the revelations regarding television evangelists such as Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, Oral Roberts, and Jimmy Swaggart. The effects arising out of the publication of…

Richard Mitchell, the "Underground Grammarian," has been dismissed by many in the academic community as a pop-culture grammar-basher. This is unfortunate, since Mitchell has linked literacy to the capacity for moral behavior. This connection between moral capacity and literacy is often avoided by the way in which literacy is defined. In…

The relationship between neology and the information content of discourse is explored. (PMP)

FOUR PASSAGES OF EXPOSITORY PROSE WERE ANALYZED IN TERMS OF EXTRA-SENTENCE STRUCTURES IN THREE SYSTEMS--LEXICAL, GRAMMATICAL, AND RHETORICAL. NONSENSE WORDS WERE SUBSTITUTED FOR ALL CONTENT WORDS IN EACH PASSAGE, GRAMMATICAL ENDINGS ON WORDS WERE RETAINED, AND PARAGRAPH INDENTIONS WERE REMOVED. FORTY-EIGHT COLLEGE UNDERGRADUATES WERE INSTRUCTED TO…

Noting that the growth of linguistics as a discipline has been accompanied by an awareness of the relevance of linguistic research to the study and teaching of reading, this paper examines four points at which linguists and reading researchers have met. The four areas reviewed are: (1) linguistic methods in teaching reading, (2) sociolinguistics…

In looking at the hierarchical structure of a composition, it is practical to diagram the natural text in T-units in a three-dimensional matrix based on the three hierarchical relationships between T-units: coordinate, subordinate, and superordinate. In this matrix, a coordinate relationship, which results from conjoining, elaborating, and…

Since mathematical English (ME) differs from ordinary English (OE) in the number of symbols used, this research investigated sequential constraint (constraints on symbol choice attributed to preceding textual material) of excerpts from 18 mathematics books, both traditional and modern, to determine its relationship to readability. Findings…

The purpose of this project is to present the results of the authors efforts to analyze classroom discourse into strategies. The source of data used in this investigation is the same as that which was used in the previous study of the logic of instruction. It consists of recorded classroom discourse at the high school level including grades nine…

Citation frequency and the opinion of faculty in New York University's School of Education were used to determine 52 authors who were influential in advocating the use of inquiry methods between 1960 and 1970. Each writer's principles of inquiry were classified in terms of Dewey's "phases of reflective thought" and their statements concerning the…

An approach to organizing extemporaneous speeches based on questions inherent in the nature of explanation and speculation is described and recommended as an alternative to the superimposition on a topic of prescribed organizational patterns. (JF)

This article presents a general purpose taxonomy of verbal response modes and explains how three dimensions of interpersonal roles-attentiveness, acquiescence, and presumptiousness can be derived from it. (MP)