Contrasts lay and "professional" metalinguistic knowledge from the viewpoint that linguistic issues concern all speakers of language. The article maintains that linguists firmly believe in a major difference between lay and theoretical metadiscursive remarks because linguists persist in believing in the objectivity of linguistic facts.…

Presents two studies that explore the connection between students' language use and how they participate in small-group science activities. Describes the range of language used by groups of students while working with materials in several elementary science classrooms. Examines how students use language in small groups to discuss, clarify, and…

Argues that Abbott's reservations arise largely from assuming that the term "hearer-new" must be restricted to its original use as defined in Prince (1992). Also argues that if "hearer-new" may be extended to encompass a wider range of "entities" (including events, attributes, etc.) and greater flexibility in its potential applications, then many…

Explores the conditional nature of good and bad news while focusing on three topics: (1) the status of information as news according the participants in a conversation; (2) the valence of this information with regard to its perception as good or bad; and (3) the effect of news on individuals. Notes that good news is privileged over bad news in…

Responding to Hayley Davis' view of gender in discourse, asserts that she misinterprets Deborah Tannen as claiming that all men are well-intentioned and misunderstood, and that this misinterpretation is a theme appearing throughout Davis' review of Tannen's collection of essays, "Gender and Discourse". (29 references) (CK)

Using a feminist post-structuralist framework of discursive analysis, explores ways in which women academics with children are both positioned and positioning within the complex and often contradictory discourses surrounding the "successful academic" and the "good mother." Asserts that while the intersection of these discourses creates conflicts…

Explores the role that tagging (a simple form of graffiti) plays around the school and community. Argues that even the writing of a name on a wall opens out into a rich discourse community, in which taggers carry on complex conversations, negotiate and challenge shared discursive norms, and develop identities that are intimately connected to a…

Describes research conducted with Hong Kong university students that investigated challenges to collaboration during computer-assisted instruction as evidenced by discourse. Evaluates videotapes of the students according to a set of discourse markers and suggests implications for software designers, teachers, and students to enhance collaboration…

Examines employability through the lenses of consensus theory and conflict theory. Expands the latter into positional conflict theory, which explains how the market for credentials is rigged and how individuals are ranked in it. Argues that even employable people may fail to find jobs because of positional competition in the knowledge-driven…

Deals with the organization of children's interaction in a school setting where the teacher is absent. Basing the analysis on a 30-minute session where a small mixed-group of pupils are working on a math problem, examines the ways in which the children accomplish the task, the on-task talk through which they organize and work through a particular…

Critical evaluation of Leila Berg's book on Risinghill, a controversial London secondary school, suggests that her depiction of the headteacher's struggle against the London County Council emphasizes a deprivationist discourse that distorts the reality of the school and its neighborhood. (Contains 26 references.) (SK)

Responds to an article that suggested Lardiere (1998a) should have carried out analyses of lexical aspect and discourse grounding in determining obligatory contexts for past tense marking. Addresses problems with the argument, while showing such analyses could introduce a comparative fallacy problem. (VWL)

Finds that applying what students read to their lives and to the world around them works with the author's students. Notes that the short story is ideally suited to this endeavor for a number of reasons: because it is short, efficient, and because the short story more readily bears a second reading, which in most cases is a necessity for deeper…

Focuses on the legacy of paradigmatics instruction in the Greek mathematics classroom, suggesting that it is based on false understanding of pragmatic logic as simply the translation of ideas into action. Offers discursive analysis of two short interactional sequences between the teacher and children in a 6th grade classroom in a primary school in…

Focuses attention on the potential strengths and weaknesses of "vernacular" studies within the sub-field of legal rhetoric in order to defend contentions about some of the silences and articulations that are involved in modern rhetorical criticism. Defends the heuristic importance of vernacular legal theory for future judicial…