Discusses the function of media nihilism--the rhetoric of "crisis and failure"--in the 1988 Presidential Debates. Examines journalists' debate questions, noting that they painted an almost wholly negative portrait of America. Suggests that the candidate who effectively "skewers" the media on its own hypocrisy should be declared…

Describes a two-part research project examining conversation memory organization packets (MOPs) at both cognitive and behavioral levels. Explores the nature of the informal initial conversation MOP, and examines whether discourse structures correspond to cognitive structures. Finds evidence that scenes in the conversation MOP are topic-centered.…

Explores a method of combining convention and intention by representing conversation structure with conversation MOPs (schematic structures that store conversation rules as generalized episodes associated with goals the episodes achieved). Discusses how conversation MOPs process the opening portion of a dialogue in an interactive advice-giving…

A longitudinal study of twenty-four (24) Hebrew-speaking mother-infant dyads during discussions of recent events indicated that mothers commented on a small set of events and tended to mark events with exclamations or formulaic expressions that gradually progressed to a true description of events as the children got older. (Author/CB)

Observation of language patterns parents used with their verbal (N=6) or nonverbal (N=6) autistic children revealed that mothers and fathers appeared sensitive to their child's language needs, but differed in how they accommodated them. Mothers used shorter mean lengths of utterance, more prompts, and fewer direct directives than fathers.…

Addresses one of the more serious criticisms made concerning the Lacanian concept of the Real, that made by Francois Roustang, who accuses Lacan of intentionally blurring the two distinct registers of this concept. Wordsworth's poem, "We Are Seven," illustrates the Real as pure loss through its representation of family relations,…

Argues that processes of evaluating and assigning membership of categories within given collectives may be identified as operating across diverse social contexts. The maintenance of social identity boundaries is dependent on "knowing" the status of one's own category membership and accomplishing this membership through the interactional work of…

Presents and analyzes data focusing on how teacher and students moved between theory and data in a unit designed to engage seventh-grade students mostly in the deductive direction of scientific activity, and how the dialectic of education was played out in the classroom as teacher and students were engaged in the activity. Contains 29 references.…

Investigated the role of talk in peer collaborations using a computer-based scientific reasoning task. Analysis of children's talk showed that talk dyads produced more talk overall and more interpretive types of talks than talk-alone subjects. Results suggest the importance of peer collaborations as a social context that supports interpretive…

Proposes that irony be viewed as a mode of indirect negation. Describes the multifaceted cognitive processes that are enlisted as a speaker interprets ironical statements. Gives an overview of past research on irony and presents a new interpretation of the ironic mode. (HB)

Presents perspectives of constructionist and conversation analysis in a study of interactive processes in literate activity. Describes the interaction among four Spanish-English students while one student generates a story. Finds four types of coordinated action by students that allowed students to control their own literacy learning. Discusses…

Proposes an alternative interpretation of imperial responsibility, founded upon Edmund Burke's rhetorical denunciation of the East India Company in 1783. Shows how Burke constructed a new understanding of imperial responsibility, in which the need to protect foreign peoples from unscrupulous Britons was stressed instead of any sense of racial…

Analyzes patterns of laughter in bookshop service encounters in England and Italy. Finds that in the English corpus, laughter is recurrently turn-initial, anticipating an account by the assistant in the same turn, whereas in the Italian corpus it is recurrently turn-final, leaving to the customer the possibility of eliciting an account and/or an…

Introduces this thematic issue on the construction of discourse by non-native speakers, reviewing the topics, methodology, and results of the six papers that follow. (contains three references) (MDM)

Two articles discuss recent trends in English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) research, focusing on the conflict between research that examines the social contexts in which English is used and micro-level ethnographic research, and research that more directly involves teachers and students in the study of classroom discourse. (contains 20 references)…