Investigates how adult readers represent causal relations among events in a narrative, specifically by testing two models of text comprehension, the linear chain of text model versus the network model. Provides support for a network model of the representation of causal relations in narratives. (HB)

Argues that an adequate theory of inference generation should accurately predict whether particular classes of knowledge-based inferences are generated online during text comprehension. Proposes a "constructionist" theory which accounts for the findings of cognitive psychology and discourse processing. (HB)

Analyzes the discourse contexts of children's justifications in verbal disputes during pretend play and object construction activities. Finds that justifications underwent little development in disputes about the physical world or the truth of assertions, but that significant developments in their use, content, and discourse context occurred in…

Notes that the contextualized, interpretive methods of qualitative research can help researchers generate rich theory. Discusses a social theory of business genres developed from a qualitative research study of organizational genres of communication. (RS)

Investigates the changes in the nonverbal forms of written language, with specific attention to the art form of graffiti. Provides and analyzes data from a study of collected graffiti. Describes three phases of visible form in the historical development of graffiti. (HB)

Offers three responses to a question about discourse synthesis and how it can be applied in the elementary classroom. (MG)

Three high-school students with severe disabilities were taught to initiate and maintain a conversation independently across a variety of school settings with nonhandicapped students as communication partners. The conversation initiation and "turntaking" skills generalized to conversation opportunities in other settings and with other…

Examination of the language use of drunken speakers in a bilingual Southern Peruvian Andes community found that drunken speakers were less constrained in their linguistic choices by individual linguistic competence and of differential status between speaker and addressee, and they exploited the ambiguities in implicit social meanings that normally…

Argues that it is time to begin integrating models of second-language (L2) research, to test and develop integrated models for L2 data, and to develop integrated explanatory theories to explain these data. (22 references) (JL)

This meta-analysis of 33 studies compared the pragmatic language skills of 825 students (ages 3-12) having language and/or learning disabilities with the skills of nondisabled peers. The students with disabilities demonstrated consistent and pervasive pragmatic deficits in conversation, which were more attributable to underlying language deficits…

Applies discourse analysis to an interview with Noam Chomsky to show the use of language to facilitate authority. Discusses idealism and scientism, change and the role of the intellectual, Chomsky's dualism, his "problem," his method, creativity and composition, activism and the intellectual, and the future of intellectualism. (PRA)

Investigates whether listener bias contributes to the mistaken notion that women talk more than men. Perceptual effects (misjudgments of rates of speech) and attitudes to social roles and perception of power relations are suggested to be among the factors contributing to the misjudgment. (GLR)

Discusses, in a conversation-analytic investigation, the forms of organization that allow specific items of classroom discourse (words, phrases, up to whole turns at talk) to be corrected by subsequent items. Central to the discussion is an analytic distinction between self-correction and other correction. (GLR)

A series of French language classroom exercises to be used over four class sessions applies principles of semiotics to literary textual analysis. The session themes include decoding and interpreting, reconstructing meaning, sociocultural connotations in the text, and sense of time and space. (MSE)

Explores the types of responses of urban first graders when asked to predict a narrative ending and to determine whether there were differences in responses from fall to spring. Indicates that first graders are capable of responding with both convergent and divergent predictions at the beginning and end of first grade. (MG)