This paper presents lesser known accounts from policy makers whose experiences as elite informants span 40 or so years in Australian early childhood education and care (ECEC) policy history between 1972 and 2009. Drawing on a post-structuralist theoretical frame, this paper employs a Foucauldian-influenced approach to discourse analysis. Given the…

While the present perfect is difficult for English Language Learners (ELLs) to master, this study seeks to provide evidence of its integral pragmatic function in the social task of initiating and developing relationships. Through analysis of the Santa Barbara Corpus of Spoken American English, the frequency of the present perfect, the pragmatic…

The current research is mainly conducted to explore the pragmatic functions of English rhetoric in public speech. To do this, methods of close reading and case studies are adopted. The research first reveals that the boom of public speech programs helps reexamine the art of utterance, during the delivery of which English rhetoric plays an…

A consensus is emerging on the need to use person-centred planning (PCP) as an approach to the identification of educational learning needs and goals for pupils with special needs, including those on the autism spectrum. The aim of this study was to analyse the interactions of participants in one PCP meeting, specifically the nature of…

People overhearing referential communication understand more when they listen in on dialogues rather than monologues. Some have proposed this is because entrainment selects better referential expressions. In a corpus analysis, we considered the role of addressees in contributing to entrainment and measured the degree to which particular…

Knowledge regarding social information is commonly believed to be derived from sources such as formal relationships and interviews and can be plotted as complex networks. We explored whether social networks can also be extracted through other means by using language statistics. In three computational studies we computed first-order and…

Media discourse has been attracting numerous conversation analysts' attention within the past one or two decades (e.g., Clayman & Heritage, 2002; Hutchby, 2006). TV talk shows, as a "semi-institutional" context which contains coexisting features of both daily conversation and institutional language (Ilie, 2001), has particularly…

Over the years neoliberal ideology and discourse have become intricately connected to making science people. Science educators work within a complicated paradox where they are obligated to meet neoliberal demands that reinscribe dominant, hegemonic assumptions for producing a scientific workforce. Whether it is the discourse of school science,…

The authors examine the functions of literacy in three accountability-driven English language arts classrooms. To explore the interplay between transmission-oriented, standards-based instruction and local interpretations and uses of literacy, they employed Pennycook's (2010) notion of relocalization. The authors examine how accountability…

In this dissertation, I address two outstanding questions regarding how linguistic and extra-linguistic information are brought together in the interpretation of language situated within a discourse. The first part of this dissertation experimentally addresses how alternatives invoked by sentences containing the focus-sensitive operator 'only' are…

This paper argues that genuine engagement and consultation is required where Indigenous voice is prevalent within the policy development process for true progress to be achieved in the educational attainments of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. It is important to note that there has been little critical analysis of policy…

The use of linguistic landscapes (LLs) to expand the respect for and knowledge of minoritized language use has extended into classroom practice and teacher preparation. Nuanced racialized understandings of language that include multimodal and multilingual realities, however, complicate the potential for educators to make sense of the language they…

It is a well-known fact that advice-giving practices may differ from culture to culture. While some societies such as British culture refrain from giving advice, others such as Turkish may prefer to give advice perceiving it as an indication of solidarity. Thus, precautions for preventing this nature of advice is taken by language itself in a…

In parallel with an increased focus on border security in immigration and citizenship policy in the UK (the so-called 'hostile environment' policy), Government-approved English language tests for visa and immigration purposes were officially labelled 'Secure English Language Tests' (SELTs) in 2010. The proximity of security concerns in language…

'One day a poster announcing the preparatory course at the university appeared in a village. Pokusa [surname, "desire" in Polish] was among the first to enrol. He was accepted after passing an exam. Now he is one of the best students! -- All you need is a good will -- he explains.' That is how a local newspaper in 1953 encouraged peasant…