Examines the nature of early school reading material and its distinct discourse structures, which are used to present possible social worlds and characters to children. Argues that understanding the interpretive challenges and problems that such texts present to children aids teachers in enhancing literacy. (RAE)

Demonstrates the difficulty that English-as-a-second-language students experience in comprehending academic lectures, explores the lexical phrases that occur in several representative academic lectures and categorizes them in terms of the discourse functions they perform, and suggests ways of teaching such lexical phrases and functional categories…

Four activities for language learning are presented, including: an exercise in compound word formation; television program production; a puzzle made of text fragments; and organizing a trip to France. (MSE)

Attempts to distinguish the role of the structure of a message in determining the different modalities of decodification and memorization in oral discourse based on the theories and experiments of Ragnar Rommetveit of the Oslo School. (CFM)

Uses Halliday and Hasan's taxonomy of cohesive devices to examine the kinds of cohesive ties used in arguments and narratives at grades 6, 10, and 12. Investigates whether there are differences between both grade levels and modes. (AEW)

Ten head-injured adults were compared to normal adults on a narrative picture description task. Subjects were similar in amount of pertinent content expressed, narrative length, and rate of speech, but were significantly slower in rate of information imparted as they required lengthier and slower verbal outputs to convey essential information.…

Offers two lessons for instructors of business writing courses, the first of which asks students to analyze actual samples of business documents and correspondence, and the second of which asks students to interview eight business people about the type and amount of writing they do in the course of their work. (JC)

Reviews previous research and presents and analyzes data regarding some possible connections between small group oral interaction and language learning. Data show that communicative interaction is far more sensitive and significant to learners' needs and abilities than are other forms of language work. (CB)

Reviews a book that presents a method for teaching writing supported by theory, and that is illustrated with examples of students' and teachers' writings. The authors' methods are based on four propositions drawn from their command of modern discourse theory, philosophy, and linguistics. (NKA)

The acquisition of narrative competence in French by an Arabic-speaking migrant worker in interactions with target language speakers was explored, with hypotheses formed about the polyfunctional uses of certain forms to mark the chronology of events in the narrative or to introduce quoted speech. (Author/CB)

Examined topic discourse skills in pre-operational level 2- to 6-year-olds (N=30) interacting with their mothers during free play. The results suggested a complex picture of children's management of discourse as it relates to topic and mothers' continuing role in facilitating their children's discourse skills. (Author/CB)

Features of telexes used for business correspondence are discussed, including omission of parts of verbs, definite and indefinite articles, pronouns, and prepositions, and also word abbreviations. The telex is different from other abbreviated texts (such as telegrams), and Business English courses should include instruction in telex writing.…

Examines reasons for discourse communities becoming a subject of writing research. Provides a brief example of the kind of analysis possible, focusing on the composing environments of two similar organizations. (AEW)

Indicates that (1) children's violations decreased with age; (2) in the dyadic context, fathers assumed a more directive role in response to children's violations than did mothers; (3) there were no between-parent differences between parents regarding reactions to children's violations in the triadic context. (NKA)

Explores specific classroom language used by students for whom English is a second language. (HOD)