The notion of a linguistic "register" is useful in posing questions about how the ways language is used differ from one kind of human activity to another. This paper analyzes a videotaped segment of male grade 4/5 students (n=3) who are talking as they work to build a tower from plastic drinking straws and pins. Discussion of the…

This paper explores the question of interpreting complex texts, particularly scripts and multimedia presentations. The paper first reviews the literature on natural discourse, noting that although interpreting spoken natural language seems rather straightforward, many scholars have discussed what is required to make sense of discourse. The paper…

In "Common Ground: Dialogue, Understanding, and the Teaching of Composition," Kurt Spellmeyer seeks to familiarize students and teachers with the linguistic and cultural no-man's-land separating them. Reinstating the value of two writing conventions often used by traditional students--expressive and commonplaces--can help expand on the…

The business communications teacher helps the student learn to write the proposal that wins a promotion or the sales letter that wins new customers. Students poised to enter the business world need language theories as much as students studying literature, for the corporate language culture is as unpredictable and ambiguous as any literary text.…

Three papers were presented at three different conferences from 1990 to 1992: "New Ways of Meaning: A Challenge to Applied Linguistics,""The Act of Meaning," and "Language in a Changing World." Because each paper addressed a different audience, each addresses the topic of meaning and change from a different approach. The first paper summarizes the…

This document and accompanying video and audio tapes are designed for children in their first year at school. Each tape contains three items designed to supplement the early stages of learning mathematics: songs, stories, and activities. On each tape there is a story about Farmer and Mrs. Dobbs who live on Honeypot Farm with a varied assortment of…

Problems of "dialect" exist in the field called "English," which is constituted by both composition and literature. The "ghettoization" of composition has created a hostile underclass, and many compositionists try to "pass" as literarists or at least unconsciously adopt the vocabulary and rhetoric of the…

Kenneth Burke's essay, "Linguistic Approach to the Problem of Education," argues for tempering a positive attitude toward education--"drooping" should be the norm. "Drooping" would be the antithesis of an education designed primarily to facilitate students' uncritical movement into the workforce. Burke explores how a…

In 1965, Richard Young and Alton Becker announced the task of founding a "modern theory of rhetoric," building on the insights of tagmemic linguist, Kenneth Pike. Five years later, their collaboration with Pike resulted in a textbook, "Rhetoric: Discovery and Change," whose broad purpose was to restore invention to its proper…

Testimony concerning Senate Bill 1595 includes statements submitted by Senator Daniel Inouye, from the Select Committee on Indian Affairs, and S. Timothy Wapato, Commissioner, Administration for Native Americans, Department of Health and Human Services. The bill in question aims to preserve and enhance the ability of Alaska Natives to speak and…

A teacher has found a historical study of a newspaper's doublespeak to be consistently effective when it is used in an American studies classroom as a teaching model. As the Ku Klux Klan evolved in the 1920s, so did the Pekin, Illinois, "Daily Times's" deceptive coverage of the Klan. Doublespeak in news reports and editorials was used to…

In an extended conversation two female writing instructors discuss the kind of discourse available in the academy, the way educators are trained to deploy its conventions, and the different ways that voices are authorized. They cite Harraway as an academic writer who bridges the various post-structuralist discourses without ever losing sight of…

The introduction to systemic functional linguistics explores the social semiotic approach to language most closely associated with the work of Michael Halliday and his colleagues. An approach that views language as a strategic, meaning-making resource, systemic linguistics focuses on the analysis of authentic, everyday texts and asks both how…

This paper examines the conception of functional literacy advanced by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a 29-member organization of leading industrialized countries, as part of its 1994 International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS). The paper suggests that embedded within this conception of literacy and the discourse…

The aim of this paper is threefold. The first section shows how the political uses of language engendered by both western-style liberalism on the one hand and various forms of nationalism on the other lead to the negation of democratic ideals. Because of the current international situation, political aspects of language are receiving more and more…