Focuses on how written records are created during calls to a Poison Control Center. Describes the relationship between writing and speaking in this bureaucratic context. Finds that keeping written records extends the length of call processing time, representing a barrier to handling new calls promptly. (MS)

Examines some of the rhetorical choices of General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev which dramatize Soviet calls for nuclear weapons de-escalation. Speculates that Gorbachev's peace efforts are sincere, because they are motivated by twin crises of a failing economy and a threatened world community. (MS)

Identifies and explains the nature of syntactic and pragmatic codes on prime-time television which distinguish characters on the basis of gender and social class. Finds that middle-class television characters employed a syntactic code by using linguistic elaboration and structural complexity. (SR)

Examines Biblical apocalyptic theory and secular apocalyptic literature. Proposes a new theory of apocalypticism in secular public discourse derived from those two major theories. Provides examples of apocalypticism in secular public discourse. (MM)

Characterizes writing about literature as data-driven and social science writing as conceptually driven. Describes how the difference shows up in professional writing, the confusion students experience in shifting from one kind of writing to another, the strengths and weaknesses of each, and benefits gained from alternating between the two kinds.…

Examines joint attentional processes in children's early lexical acquisition and conversational interaction. Early language development builds on adult-child joint attentional focus on nonlinguistic entities. A developmental sequence of joint attentional processes in early language development is proposed, and the role of adults in this sequence…

Uses a rhetorical analysis of a storytelling process presently ongoing about artificial intelligence to reveal the communication patterns which are used to maintain and shift ideologies. Suggests an extension of Fisher's narrative paradigm of the processes of continuity and change underlying storytelling, via Brown's conception of ideology as…

Investigates how language usage differs in same-sex and mixed-sex dyads. Finds partial support for the Gender-Linked Language Effect in same-sex dyads and for the attenuation of that effect in mixed-sex dyads. (MS)

Analyzes argumentation and the ways in which idealized models of argumentation relate to the linguistic behavior of participants in argument as talk. Sequencing patterns of arguments are interactionally accomplished. Speakers produce turns which are related to their purpose in talking and that include speech act complexes appropriate for the…

Discusses some of the main protagonists in the debate between economists about their own discourse and reviews significant studies by applied linguists in this area. The article suggests that these studies may be grouped according to the categories micro-studies, macro-studies and educational studies. (57 references) (Author/CK)

This study compared the use of reference cohesion in oral narratives produced by 93 students with and without learning disabilities (LD), ages 8-13 years. Results indicated significant group, age, and task effects. The specific kinds of reference cohesion problems exhibited by LD students involved accuracy of use and distance between reference…

Describes AT&T's long distance service interruption in New York on September 17, 1991, as a serious threat to its corporate image. Analyzes the advertising actions taken by AT&T to restore its image. Discusses three primary strategies developed in the advertising: mortification, plans for correction, and bolstering. (HB)

Reports on the origins and importance of the "Three Doctrines Discussions" of the Chinese Tang dynasty (618-960). Shows how their evolution and decline parallel shifts in the balance of political power. Argues that these debates functioned rhetorically to enhance and legitimate the emperor's political power. (HB)

Children's literature, with its complex structures and discourse strategies, helps beginning language students develop reading strategies and begin understanding discourse strategies in native speech. Tsao's notion of discourse analysis is used to introduce topic deletion in a sample of literary texts. (Contains 25 references.) (LB)

This paper reviews how sociocultural theory conceptualizes teaching and learning, fundamental constructs of the theory and methodology, and basic guidelines for discourse analysis. It applies these concepts to three research areas: the social construction of disability, contingent instruction between adults and learners, and miscommunication…