Argues that there are very good reasons for developing discourse grammars for second-language (L2) teaching. Exemplifies the criteria for moving from sentence-based grammar to the discourse level. The criteria are based on pedagogical and descriptive problems in grammar that sentence-based approaches cannot adequately deal with. (Author/VWL)

Explores the usefulness of the criterion of authenticity for the selection and evaluation of English for academic purposes materials. Using a student questionnaire and techniques of discourse analysis based on Halliday's concepts of field, tenor, and mode, the levels of difficulty and relevance of materials using four media was investigated.…

Explores the gendered nature of talk in one multicultural, eighth-grade classroom, discussing how talk is an integral part of engendering. Looks at how the genderlects "Boy Talk" and "Girl Talk" contributed to classroom inequities. Offers suggestions to teachers for ways to validate and utilize the girls' discourse practices to their advantage,…

Discusses gendered-discourse in the foreign language classroom. Presents research suggesting that boys do not necessarily always dominate and that girls create learning opportunities for themselves and are able to utilize those provided by the teacher. (Author/VWL)

Suggests that it is appropriate to view the community college as a discourse community in its own right, and as a part of the larger discourse community of higher education. Argues that this shift in judgment might increase perceptions of community college competence, thus moving them into positions of legitimate power. (Contains 14 references.)…

Examines how the voluntary national U.S. history standards contained within the "National Standards for United States History: Exploring the American Experience" were presented in selected U.S. newspapers. Uses ethnographic content and critical discourse analytic methodologies. Indicates that most newspapers presented a fragmented and inflated…

Project-based curricula have the potential to engage students' interests. But how do students become interested in the goals of a project? This article documents how a group of 8th-grade students participated in an architectural design project called the Antarctica Project. The project is based on the imaginary premise that students need to design…

Deliberative discussions are grounded in particular conceptions of democracy and are intensely difficult to learn to lead. This study uses a sociocultural lens to examine the cases of two elementary school teachers as they worked to foster deliberation in their classrooms. Speech code theory is used to uncover conceptual tools the teachers used as…

In this study, the authors investigate emotional understanding in autism through a discourse analytic framework to provide a window into children's strategies for interpreting emotional versus nonemotional encounters and consider the implications for the mechanisms underlying emotional understanding in typical development. Accounts were analyzed…

This article seeks to explore the practice of repair in classroom discourse from an ideological perspective of language and literacy. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in an urban high school with a predominant English Language Learner (ELL) population, this paper outlines the theoretical foundations of repair from a "conversation…

The importance of establishing a connection with readers in academic writing is now widely acknowledged. The growing literature on this topic, however, has largely concentrated on published "expert" texts and on the ways that writers use language to project their stance or identity. In contrast, this paper will focus on strategies which…

Therapeutic discourse is the talk-in-interaction that represents the social practice between clinician and client. This article invites speech-language pathologists to apply their knowledge of language to analyzing therapy talk and to learn how talking practices shape clinical roles and identities. A range of qualitative research approaches,…

This study examined the functions that student talk served during partner reading events in a second grade classroom. Five major themes of talk emerged from the data including organizational, disputational, word strategy, meaning making and personal talk. All of these types of talk functioned to support partner reading except for personal talk,…

For many scholars (see Smyth, 1995; Tilbury, 1995; Fien & Tilbury, 2002; Hopkins & McKeown, 2002) the emergence of the discourse of education for sustainable development (ESD) over the past 15 or so years is viewed as a progressive transition in the field, along similar lines to the positive portrayal of prior historical transitions from nature…

The study set out to investigate the impact of the official endorsement of 'interactive whole class teaching' on the interaction and discourse styles of primary teachers while teaching the National Literacy and Numeracy Strategies. In both strategies, interactive whole class teaching is seen as an 'active teaching' model promoting high quality…