Presents a functional grammatical analysis of the writing that 128 seventh- and eighth-grade students produced in response to their science teacher's directive to describe a picture. Identifies the register elements of the task and the grammatical difficulties it posed for students. Shows that teachers can help students use grammatical resources…

Analyzes four topics: (1) everyday discourse and judgments about language usage; (2) "social linguistics" and explanations for language differences in terms of categories such as class and gender; (3) the proposition that identity is constructed by language; and (4) the extent to which social categories are discursively constructed. (SK)

Contends understanding preservice teachers' beliefs about grammar and conventionality through studying how they write about it is important since these beliefs will likely influence the kind of teachers they become. Finds preservice teachers' written discourse about grammar/conventionality reveals largely negative attitudes toward writers who made…

In years 1 and 3, the cognitive level of classroom discourse was assessed for 28 agriculture faculty. In year 2, interventions included either awareness workshops, workshops plus readings, or workshops plus teaching meetings. Percentage of higher-level discourse increased; faculty experiencing positive change with higher-level discourse increased…

Contributes to scholarship on technology and society by examining portrayals of the information highway in a wide range of magazine articles. Finds that a sense of powerlessness pervades these narratives, which portray the world as autonomous economic forces toward which individuals must adjust their actions. Argues that these narratives close off…

Examines discourses in the academic and information science literature that attempt to justify and promote, to criticize and resist, or to explain and interpret transformational social change. Surveys literature about organizational change in academic libraries and builds a syncretic interpretation to overcome some of the traditional problems of…

Looks at conversation in Japanese between native and nonnative speaking peers. Focuses on other-repair, taking the conversation analytic approach to phenomena in nonnative discourse. Identifies a range of speaking practices as well as embodied resources that are understood by recipients as inviting or initiating other repair. (Author/VWL)

Looks at a sample of instructional documents using Restricted and Elaborated Code and metadiscourse analysis to determine how easily users can read and understand the material. Suggests that the documents do not send a clear message to authors and editors and can be stylistically hard to understand and consequently, the approved standards…

Analyzes advice giving in counseling within labor market training. Shows how a stepwise entry works in a setting in which a counselor's role is that of a facilitator of learning. (Author/VWL)

Discusses the use of "ever" in affirmative responses to Yes/No type questions as well as in declarative sentences in discourse in colloquial Singaporean English. Examines parallels in Singaporean English use of "ever" with its equivalents in the local languages. While parallels can be seen in Mandarin Hokkein, Cantonese, and…

Discusses intergenerational negotiations about family problems in terms of multiparty problem formulations that raise basic questions about who is entitled to diagnose adolescents'"problems." Shows how adolescents' problems are formulated as "blame" allocations. Demonstrates (in three case studies) how the therapist acts as an…

Presents a dialog between two speakers examining the nature of writing discourse, how it is categorized, how it is changing, how e-mail and other media are affecting it, and what is considered acceptable in certain discourses. (TB)

Finds that power exerted a substantial impact on the messages persons used during a negotiation game; message behavior moderated the effect of power on outcomes, so that negotiators were differentially effective in any given power condition depending upon the messages employed; and participants' message behavior was often maximizing outcomes. (SR)

Finds that adolescent girls and their friends exhibited a fast-paced conversation style that included frequent interruptions, simultaneous speech, and the use of overlaps between turns; while mothers exhibited a style characterized by slower pacing, pausing, infrequent interruptions, and simultaneous speech. Finds that daughters ended up…

Examined the spontaneous speech of four children and their parents for use of determiners with NP-type nouns and count nouns. Found that the parents made a clear distinction between the two kinds of nouns, omitting determiners with the NP-type nouns but not with the count nouns. The children all made the same distinction by four years of age. (HTH)