President Richard Nixon decided in 1970 to commission the construction of a fleet of reusable space shuttles. Nixon's rhetoric on the space shuttle program (examined here in the light of Kenneth Burke's theory of symbolic action) shows how a philosophy of pragmatism was crafted out of a philosophy of wonderment. That one cannot now remember…

This paper discusses the rhetoric of American educators to show that rhetorical analyses can be used to highlight assumed concepts and values within educators' discourses, policies, and practices, and to suggest that greater awareness of their rhetoric can help educators make their communications congruent with their purposes. The paper describes…

This study investigated whether dialogue journal writing between hearing and hearing-impaired writers is an effective way of developing social relations between school peers. The project involved 37 teachers of the hearing-impaired and 127 completed journals written by students, aged 10 to 18 years, with at least a third grade reading level.…

A study examined the discourse sequences and routines through which older adults disclose their ages to others. Data are drawn from conversations between women, who were asked to "get to know each other," and interviews with 34 women and 6 men in an elderly day care center. The second source group was used only to support the distribution evidence…

A study illustrated an interpretive approach to investigating personal commitment during radical organizational transition by examining how people talk metaphorically about commitment and identification as a process. A questionnaire was constructed to be used in phone interviews with six employee assistance program (EAP) counselors who contract…

To examine the textual features that distinguish descriptions and fictional narratives in the products of eight- and nine-year old writers, a study analyzed 14 compositions (seven descriptions and seven fictional narratives) written by 14 third grade students. The samples were rated by two qualified professionals working in writing research,…

To contribute intelligently to the scholarly debate in their field, students must realize that variations in vocabulary, stylistic conventions and methods of argumentation among different disciplines' literature reveal distinct assumptions about and methods for working within the world. The broad agreement between author and audience on the…

Analysis of the factors that make a text coherent or non-coherent suggests that total coherence requires cohesion not only on the textual surface but on the semantic level as well. Syntactic evidence of non-coherence includes lack of formal agreement blocking a potential cross-reference, anaphoric and cataphoric references that do not follow their…

A study of the cognitive processes involved in achieving coherence in discourse examined a major factor affecting the accessibility of referents: the length of absence of the referent from the distribution of different types of grammatical referential devices (definite nouns and anaphoric pronouns) in discourse. Six versions of a set of twenty…

The two current approaches to teaching academic discourse are conventional and collaborative; in practice, they overlap because both are based on a "conversational model" of learning to write in college. Taxonomists and collaborationists disagree on the relative emphasis that should be placed on the various pedagogical methods:…

A number of questions have been raised about James Kinneavy's theory of expressive discourse, among them the problem of how so many different genres, from the personal essay to the declaration of independence, can be lumped under one aim, self-expression. Another is why self-expression is the only one of the aims to be divided into two general…

This study examined effects of interpersonal and intrapersonal cognitive conflict tasks on 54 fifth and 18 seventh grade children's sociomoral rule awareness. Preconventional stage children 9 years of age were paired in same-sex dyads with 9- and 11-year-old children intermediate between preconventional and conventional stage reasoning. Six legal…

A system of classification for tellings and retellings by Panama's Kuna Indians reveals the dimensions of their structure and function, textually, contextually, strategically, and ethnographically. Kuna verbal life can be characterized in terms of three distinct ritual-ceremonial traditions marked by three distinct languages, settings, sets of…

Discourse analysis of an interview with a Mexican American immigrant mother concerning her children's education in the United States and her relationship with the school provides an understanding of the adaptations of an immigrant in organizational relationships and how language reflects and influences those interactions. The model of discourse…

Dialogue from 30-minute samples from "Sesame Street" and "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood" was coded for grammar, content, and discourse. Grammatical analysis used the LINGQUEST computer-assisted language assessment program (Mordecai, Palen, and Palmer 1982). Content coding was based on categories developed by Rice (1984) and…