Discusses the results of a study of utterance functions in preschool children to demonstrate that, within a certain conversation, whether social or intellectual, subjects may make both social and intellectual utterances, rendering distinction between the two types of utterances very dubious. (Author/CB)

Introduces the transitivity model of textual analysis, assesses its application to news reports, and discusses the critical linguistic background in which it has proved popular. (JK)

Discusses problems that arise through use of ironic language in arguments. Examines how and why irony is used in argumentation and, specifically, how an ironic tone is recognized. (AEW)

Claims that the narrative paradigm recently proposed as a model for rhetorical criticism is problematic because of internal contradictions and inconsistencies. Argues that independent sources are lacking for judging the adequacy of a critic's claims about a text. (JD)

Criticizes J.L. Austin's and J.R. Searle's claims that utterances have illocutionary force and offers an alternative account of the illocutionary aspect of utterances, which sees illocution as the way in which utterances meaningfully relate to the state of affairs in the world. (FL)

Reports on four experiments on how differences in utterance relations influence understanding anaphors, that is, devices that refer back to previously mentioned words or concepts in a discourse. Findings suggest that readers may selectively keep information available if it is likely to be needed for interpreting subsequent input. (SED)

The expectation of action in a novel is examined through Martin's "The New Song," a narrative in which no events occur, and the realization of the passage of time is the primary literary statement. (MSE)

The paper reviews research on the pragmatic language skills of language impaired and learning disabled students. Discourse skills are analyzed in terms of communicative intentions, presupposition, social organization of discourse, and context. Narrative skills are examined according to narrative structure, scripts, text cohesion, and audience…

Differences in discourse type were expected to result in differences in processing text. The more organized discourse types of comparison, problem/solution, and causation were predicted to yield superior recall of information than a collection of descriptions about a topic. Results from two studies supported this prediction. (Author/BW)

This article introduces this issue of the journal, a compilation of articles that share the common goal of drawing correlations between social representations and the dialogue that formulates them. Most of the articles were written by researchers working on a common project that aims to analyze the social representations of bilingualism in…

With a view on analyzing the deeper trends in the European discourse that will shape the European Union's (EU's) future, a study examined 121 speeches made by EU political leaders over the period 1985-1997 and concorded and statisticized which words were used, how often, where, and when with the help of a computer-aided content analysis engine.…

This paper first briefly reviews what Halliday and Hasan (1976) said about "(the) same." The paper then examines the understanding of this form by qualitatively analyzing 259 naturally occurring spoken tokens of "(the) same" in their discourse contexts. It focuses on the following questions with reference to the data: (1) What…

Asserts that feminist thinkers must self-consciously and critically confront various traditions of political discourse, feminist and nonfeminist. Reviews a number of these traditions and examines several modes that seem promising for the creation of a feminist discourse that rejects domination. (Author/GC)

Identifies and briefly discusses nine areas of reading research. (AEA)