This study examined the effects of pre-structuring discussion threads on group performance in computer-supported collaborative argumentation where students labeled their messages as arguments, challenges, supporting evidence, and explanations on a threaded discussion board. In the pre-structured group students were required to post supporting and…

Social psychologists have shown experimentally that implicit race bias can influence an individual's behavior. Implicit bias has been suggested to be more subtle and less subject to cognitive control than more explicit forms of racial prejudice. Little is known about how implicit bias is manifest in naturally occurring social interaction. This…

Many consider rich argumentation to be the core of quality discussions and view it as a vehicle to solving problems and clarifying content. This study examined the influence of a discussion leader intervention on the quality of online argumentation and interactivity. Subjects were 44 undergraduate students who participated in online discussions on…

This text provides a linguistic analysis of discourse register in English, Nukulaelae Tuvaluan, Korean, and Somali, using a multi-dimensional analytical framework and including sociocultural descriptions. Methodology included a description of the text corpora, linguistic features, and computational/statistical techniques used; theoretical issues…

The purpose of this paper is to examine the process of interlanguage development in Japanese adult learners of English as a Second Language (ESL) in acquisition-poor environments. A total of 353 subjects were divided into 9 groups based on their level of English proficiency and tested to determine: (1) what types of errors Japanese adult ESL…

Characteristics and patterns of Ukrainian language usage expressing social distance are analyzed, with examples given from current usage and, to a lesser extent, perspectives drawn from historical usage. It is concluded that Ukrainian has a rich morphological paradigm to express distance, primarily through diminutive morphology, which can…

A study investigated patterns of interaction in college classroom discourse involved in small group work. Specifically, it looked at two discourse sequences: Question-Answer-Comment (Q-A-C) and Question-Counter Question-Answer-Comment (Q-CQ-A-C). Instances of the latter are closely considered in the context in which they occur, and an attempt is…

This study investigated the discourse strategies used by native speakers of Turkish in carrying out speech acts of correction and disagreement to status-unequal interlocutors. Focus was on: (1) the politeness markers preferred for softening the impact of words in face-threatening speech situations where the interlocutor corrects the mistake of an…

A study compared the narrative structures in stories told by monolingual Swedish-speaking children (n=19) and Finnish-speaking immersion students of Swedish (n=19), all in fifth grade. The immersion students had been taught in immersion since kindergarten. Subjects each told a story based on a wordless picture book, which was then analyzed for a…

An analysis of story telling in Konni, a language spoken in Ghana, focused on how the climax of a story is characterized. The texts studied are six oral folk tales; two are appended, and portions of all are used as illustrations in the text of the report. First, the definition and characteristics of "peak," or climax of a story are…

This paper reports a study that examined the academic language of middle school social studies education, as found in textual and classroom discourse, and the instructional practices effective in guiding students to accomplish academically and socially meaningful tasks. It involved classroom-based research, analysis of textbook discourse,…

This study examined the effects of adolescent pubertal status, adolescent gender, parent gender, and conversation topic on parent and adolescent affective expression. Subjects were 85 adolescents in fifth through ninth grade who participated in 2 separate 8-minute conversations, one pleasant and one unpleasant, with their mother and father…

This study examined the development of metaprocessing abilities in children with varying degrees of language abilities and sought to determine if the patterns of metaprocessing development that emerged were similar for these ability groups. Subjects were 141 children ages 4-5 at the beginning of the study, divided into a control group, a low…

A study investigated common discourse features in the Spanish of six novice-level Spanish second language learners, as evidenced in oral interviews by two interviewers. Features examined included use of cohesive devices, use of the first language, whispering to self, scaffolding with the interviewer to express themselves, and negotiation. Results…

The nature of research on speech communication in asymmetrical interactions, such as those between a speech therapist and patient, is discussed and some general approaches to therapy are noted. The situation of the aphasic is then considered, in which intervention is particularly difficult due to the lack of some important aspects of interpersonal…