The use of text classification as a strategy in the training of translators is discussed. Frequently, translator trainees are required to complete a text profile classifying the text on dimensions such as purpose, formality, difficulty, and emotional tone. It is argued that the empirical basis for such classification is very shaky, but could be…

A study investigated the effects of instruction in metadiscourse on composition students' writing skills. Subjects were students in two 100-level college composition classes. A Control Class (CC) was taught using a process approach, and the Experimental Class (EC) had direct teaching of metadiscourse. The CC students worked on the propositional…

The professional practices concerning children's questions in the welfare clinic, the day care center, the school and the library in Finland are discussed in this paper. Each institution's historical background and the implicit and explicit concepts of children affecting professional behavior are analyzed. The research data include legal and…

The collection of papers on linguistic experiments includes: "Discourse Functions of Pitch Range in Spontaneous and Read Speech" (Gayle M. Ayers); "When Is a Syllable Not a Syllable?" (Mary E. Beckman); "The Relationship between Syntactic and Semantic Processes in Sentence Comprehension" (Julie E. Boland); "The Influence of Orthography and…

A study investigated beliefs, attitudes, and values upper-division college students have about gender and sexuality and how language is a medium by which these ideologies are created, challenged, and maintained. Further, it looks at how these ideologies are interdependent and interrelated, how symbolic systems of the campus interact as students…

This book presents nine studies conducted by teacher researchers who explore the oral and written discourse of learning communities--communities of students, communities of teachers, and communities in which students and teachers learn together. The studies focus on journal writing, conversation, story telling, geometry, computer technology, and…

A study investigated the syntactic properties and functions of English-Spanish code-switching in literary, political, and news magazines in Mexico. It is proposed that oral code-switching in Chicano communities and written code-switching in the Mexican press differ both syntactically and pragmatically, with the latter more syntactically…

A study investigated how a second language (L2) learner's writing skills develop in a second-language context. The three research questions addressed the effect of: (1) first-language (L1) literacy skills, (2) L2 proficiency, and (3) the instructional context on L2 writing. Subjects were 70 university French students. Data were drawn from 300…

This paper analyzes discrepant findings from research on science teacher knowledge and classroom discourse. In new science teachers' classrooms, discourse during laboratory activities differed in important ways from discourse during other types of instruction. Furthermore, teacher subject-matter knowledge had effects that were not predicted by the…

This study investigated the hypothesis that in language contact situations, bilinguals develop strategies aimed at lightening the cognitive load of having to remember and use two different linguistic systems, resulting in changes in the secondary language. The study examined four specific strategies (simplification of grammatical categories and…

This study analyzed doctor-patient communication from a sociolinguistic perspective, focusing on two issues: (1) why patients are not more effective in asserting themselves in talking with doctors, and (2) why doctors don't talk more like normal people (i.e., patients). Research on communication in health care contexts is reviewed, looking at such…

A planned 3-year joint project of the Nordic research council for the humanities that focuses on writing development in school-age children is described. Four Nordic countries are involved in the project: Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. In the study, discourse-level performance analyses of student writing in English as a Second Language are…

To understand the nature of talk in small group writing workshops, including the way talk changes over time and the use students make of such talk, a study analyzed the conversations of 17 inexperienced college writers as they composed and revised self-selected pieces during a one-semester composition course. A student from the course who did not…

A discussion of the types and uses of stories in second language instruction argues that the inclination to narrate is an omnipresent human phenomenon, whether attributed to nature or to culture. The story is a means of self-expression and communication that describes different forms of narrative, both literary and nonliterary. The uses and…

The idea that "natural speech" as well as written discourse can be organized is now commonly accepted. There is also evidence that natural speech contains more coherence indicators than written texts do. This article proposes that one type of organizer, pragmatic connectives such as "therefore, then, thus, while, however, but"…