Examines rhetorical processes which convert experience into social forms of community. Compares Robert Scott's notion of rhetoric as dynamic with the rhetorical concept of "spectacle." Explores "the dynamic spectacle" as a rhetorical document of community building. Examines Black America's reaction to the spectacle of Liberty…

Examines group differences in second-language development from perspectives provided by literature on orality and literacy. Results show that university English-as-a-Second-Language students from traditional oral cultures tended to focus on interpersonal involvement in their speaking and writing, and use difficult structures more than students…

Examines the construction of racial scientific discourse within the milieu of an extremely racially segregated society. Traces the influence of capitalism, racism, Social Darwinism, eugenics, and "racial science" on the pedagogy of modern apartheid in South Africa. Finds evidence of pervasive effects of "scientific" ideas on…

Despite theoretical weaknesses, postmodernism offers educators important insights that can be incorporated in a broader theory of schooling and critical pedagogy. Argues that the best elements of modernist and postmodernist discourses should be combined to create a pedagogy and politics that reclaim and reinvigorate the possibilities of a radical…

Analysis of negative utterances from English-, French-, and Korean-speaking one- through three-year-olds identified nine distinct semantic/pragmatic categories with a similar developmental order in all three languages. Different patterns were found in the form-function relationship for the different categories. (Author/CB)

Discusses the recommendations made by compositionists from 1950 to 1980 to apply the findings of linguists to composition instruction. Argues that the noncontextual orientation of modern linguistics renders it insufficient as a comprehensive source of theoretical or practical assistance in composition instruction. (MG)

Studied the effect of content knowledge on learners' participation in interactions between nonnative speakers. Measures of participation included amount of talk, conversational fillers, back channels, topic moves, clarification questions, and confirmation and comprehension checks. Findings support the relationship between knowledge and…

Describes the discourse of three ninth-grade coauthoring trials (model, typical, and problem groups), discussing factors in their interactions that affected the success of collaborative writing. Three factors characterized the model group (kinds of social interactions, level of cognitive conflict, and amount and kinds of engagement during the…

Investigates teacher reformulation of student talk in order to determine the manner in which teachers affect student meaning and expression. Findings indicate that reformulation is a device used by teachers to control classroom dialog and that teachers disproportionately perform the language functions most commonly associated with higher-order…

Classroom discourse is evaluated for the contribution it can make to students' learning in groups. Data recorded from primary age children working at computers are categorized as exploratory, cumulative, and disputational talk. The teacher's role in making explicit strategies that optimize exploratory talk is discussed. (Contains 31 references.)…

Draws a distinction between language in the classroom and language of the classroom to illustrate the ways in which situated definitions of language, text, and academic practices were established by a seventh-grade English teacher and her students through their oral and written discourse practices. (MDM)

Proposes a form of discourse analysis to link theory and practice in an account of effective practice in physical education. The analysis is applied to two lessons by preservice students who introduce more "considered, sensitive teaching" and focuses on the interactive patterns between participants as indicators of a framework for…

Examined discourse of bereaved individuals using computer-based text analyses. Compared discourse structure of low-distress bereaved individuals, high-distress bereaved subjects, and a single bereaved individual. Meaningful differences between the distress groups and the single individual indicate possible quantitative and qualitative means for…

Examination of the development of form/function relations of the prepositions "por" and "para" at different levels of proficiency in the interlanguage of study-abroad students in Granada, Spain, revealed "noncanonical" as well as "canonical" uses of these prepositions. The most common noncanonical uses were…

Reports on a project incorporating pragmatic analysis into the second language classroom. Cooperative learning groups of first-year ESL students in a composition class analyzed variation in the use of linguistic features across a set of texts. Exercises of this type are asserted to be useful in promoting awareness of the different potential uses…