Analyzes the use of transitional markers in 25 published essays. Concludes that while marker usage at times obfuscates rather than clarifies relationships, it can also enhance the writer's authority and provide both writer and reader with a mental respite before they plunge into the next thought. (MM)

This study focuses on a particular listening pattern in Japanese which occurs by overlapping with the current speaker's incrementing utterance. Applying the Conversational Analysis approach to conversational data, the study delineates how native speakers utilize overlapping listener responses to indicate their strong alignment, and why learners of…

The writing of academic abstracts is more than a tiresome necessity of scholarly life. It is a practice which goes beyond genre and technique to questions of identity and the promotional economies of academic work. In this paper, a series of abstracts from a variety of refereed journals and conferences are deconstructed and a set of questions that…

This collection of papers examines how sign languages are distributed around the world; what occurs when they come in contact with spoken and written languages, and how signers use them in a variety of situations. Each chapter introduces the key issues in a particular area of inquiry and provides a comprehensive review of the literature. The seven…

A taxonomy of metadiscourse--defined as discourse that people use not to expand referential material but to help their readers connect, organize, interpret, evaluate, and develop attitudes toward that material--was proposed in "College Composition and Communication" (Vande Kopple, 1985). More surveying and classifying has been done since…

A study investigated, in the Burkeian tradition, motives revealed through communication. It also applied the narrative paradigm developed by Walter Fisher, using each traditional standard (truth, aesthetic, results, ethical, and attitudinal) and explored the development of a new standard--the practical standard for the storyteller. Narratives…

A speech in response to an individual's death is by nature a recurring form of rhetoric. Based on audience expectations and needs, certain generic aspects have emerged to characterize eulogies. The funeral oration has generally been recognized as a form of epideictic rhetoric. Modern scholars have generally broadly defined epideictic rhetoric to…

This article concentrates on the use of metaphors characterizing a multilingual brain in a corpus of oral interactions drawn from the Andorran part of an international research study. First, the situation and the status of metaphors in fields connected to the elaboration of knowledge is questioned. Next, the most important metaphors associated to…

Noun phrases are often used in academic writing to express the abstract character of the topics discussed. Nouns, especially nominalizations, make it possible to express complicated ideas in a condensed and compact manner, whereas the corresponding verbs make texts easier to understand and more dynamic. In this paper, a case study is presented…

Recent emphasis on discourse in mathematics classrooms has spurred a line of inquiry about different forms of talk in these settings. If mathematical thinking is understood to be a set of practices that includes mathematical discourse, argumentation, which has an especially important role in mathematics, requires analytic attention. In particular,…

This issue of Studies in Philippine Languages and Cultures contains the following articles: "Functions of Locatives in Northern Subanen Expository and Hortatory Discourse" (Josephine Sanicas-Daguman); "Functions of Demonstratives in Sama Bangingi' Expository Discourse" (John Blakely); "A Brief Look at Sinama Basic Verbs…

This digest focuses on the application of discourse analysis to second language teaching and learning. It provides examples of how teachers can improve their teaching practices by investigating actual language use both in and out of the classroom, and how students can learn language through exposure to different types of discourse. (VWL)

Research conducted under the auspices of the Summer Institute of Linguistics and partially supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation. (DD)

Bororo is an unclassified language spoken in central Mato Grosso, Brazil. Field work done under the auspices of the Summer Institute of Linguistics; paper written with the partial support of the National Science Foundation. (RS)

Paper presented at the 4th International Congress for Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science, August 29-September 4, 1971, Bucharest, Rumania. (RS)