Using conversation analysis as a central tool of analysis, examines the sequential development of talk-in-interaction observed in a small group activity in a Japanese language classroom. Explores the relationship among task instruction, students' reaction to the instruction during their pre-task planning, and the actual development of talk with…

Using a framework of systemic functional grammar, compares two modes of presenting the same scientific topic: in a physics textbook and in interactive teacher talk. Three aspects of scientific meaning making are analyzed: representations of physical and mental reality, lexical packaging, and the rhetorical structure of reasoning. (Author/VWL)

Describes theoretical points concerning the idea of semiotic means of objectification. Analyzes classroom activity by observing the interface between the spoken and the seen. Discusses the role of a category of linguistic terms related to actions of showing or pointing out something that constitute a key element in the mathematical discursive…

When three small businesses' development activities were analyzed from a traditional perspective, company one is a high investor, the second a moderate investor, and the third conducts no training. From a discourse perspective, company one uses learning and development as integral resources, the second's culture does not promote learning, and the…

Examines the relationship between adult recasts of child utterances and the child's acquisition of syntactic structures. Results indicate that maternal recasts of specific morphemes were related to the acquisition of those specific morphemes during certain developmental periods, whereas other grammatical morphemes were facilitated by expansions…

Defines validation as a process by which researchers evaluate the trustworthiness of a study through a tacit understanding of actual practices. Proposes an approach to validation based on the concept of exemplars--concrete models of research practice. Uses three studies of narrative--life history, oral narrative, and narrative strategy--as…

An interactional approach for studies of English as a nonnative language is proposed. The approach entails the adoption of ethnomethodological perspectives on social knowledge, combined with conversation analytic interests in detailing the locally managed character of spoken interaction, and introducing the term "lingua franca" English to describe…

Explains how the Sophistic tradition, an alternative to the Platonic-Aristotelian rhetorical tradition, provides the historical foundation for a paralogic rhetoric that treats discourse production and analysis as open-ended dialogic activities and not as a codifiable system. Argues that teachers must examine the powerful paralogic/hermeneutic…

Refutes the reanalysis of a phonologically disordered child's use of fricatives as developed by Fey (1989) within a relational framework. Evidence in the form of nonsystematic correspondence between the child's substitution patterns and the target sound system is used to further establish accuracy of the original independent generative analysis…

Study of the pragmatics of politeness conventionally draws on conversational data, but can be extended to some genres of written text. A framework is described that analyzes politeness strategies in terms of impositions (claims and denials of claims) and reveals some stylistic features in scientific papers and in popularizations. (Author/CB)

Interprets four news stories about Joyce Brown, a homeless women who, against her will, was institutionalized by the city of New York. Examines how television news marks boundaries between the marginal and the mainstream, between a major socioeconomic problem demanding collective engagement and a personal problem requiring private remedy. (MS)

Examines stories about organizations to view how conversants define their organizations' character and their own roles within the organizations. Finds that stories exhibit two kinds of conversational markers (action and constraint markers), and that their sequential juxtaposition is an effective thematic device for analyzing conversational…

Three experiments gauging 7- to 10-year-old children's ability to interpret and comprehend figurative language indicated that informative contexts could improve subjects' abilities to perceive idiomatic meanings. Subjects were less able to produce idioms than to comprehend them, but were able to perceive that language can be both figurative and…

Examines the relationship of construct differentiation and conceptual level to four features of argument design: number of arguments produced, coordinated conception of the problem, coordinated defense of the proposal, and diversity of stock issue covered. Finds that construct differentiation was positively associated with all four measures of…

Analyzes the discourse of Logo lessons and suggests that successful learning of Logo concepts may involve a careful structuring of the teaching context. (SR)