Analyzes four types of repair activity in the foreign language classroom. A distinction is made according to whether the trouble source is produced by a teacher or a learner. Findings show that different preferences for repair patterns vary with the type of classroom activity (language-centered or content-centered). (Author/SED)

Variation in three representative teacher input variables are compared across second language studies to derive viable hypotheses about instructional factors that contribute to second language development. The review indicates that, while the quality and quantity of comprehensible input are important, interactive pedagogical behaviors are also the…

Results suggest that (1) schizophrenic and nonschizophrenic families use language differently when they communicate and (2) computer analysis of conversation may be a promising diagnostic tool. (PD)

Explores how Burke's texts engage readers. Discusses his determinate meaning, propositional content, stylistic content, interest in his audience, attitudes of assent and dissent toward reading, and the idea of reading as rebirth. (EL)

Describes a study of preschool children's utterances and their context, intended to provide evidence of children's argumentative capacities. Shows how children, though perhaps not consciously, use language to intervene upon reality in order to modify a state of things by sensibly arguing their case. (SED)

Investigates the development of communicative competence during preschool age by analyzing certain types of communicative acts and sequences of communicative acts in adult-child and child-child communication. Assumes there are certain phases in which a child is especially prepared for the acquisition of certain types of communicative acts. (SED)

It is suggested that native speakers understand that narrative in literature is a form of transcript of full discourse, and students of English can learn the same clues of transaction and interaction in texts through exercises in plot analysis, plot mutation, and scenario derivation. (MSE)

Song seems to lend itself particularly to language instruction because it encourages participation in a game of recognizing who is speaking, how, and about what and because enunciation is the dominant trait of its structure. Activities using song might focus on the condensation of meaning, redundance, interpretation, social consequences of song,…

Four articles provide ideas for specific classroom activities using songs, including discussion based on two popular hitchhiking songs, appreciation of the elements and structure of a song representative of the new "French song," making collages representing songs, and analysis of the treatment of age in Yves Duteil's songs. (MSE)

Three critics comment on weaknesses in Louis G. Ceci's September 1983 "College English" article, "The Case for Syntactic Imagery," and Ceci responds. (CRH)

In order to compare the foregrounding strategies of native speakers of English and advanced learners of English as a second language, 15 native speakers and 35 advanced learners produced play-by-play descriptions of the unfolding action in an animated videotape. Results show that the two groups use different strategies of foregrounding. (SED)

Evaluates process theory, suggests its limits, and addresses some of the conceptual problems it leaves unresolved. (RBW)

Evaluates James L. Kinneavy's theory of discourse. Suggests that Kinneavy's theory would profit from internal development and shows how his terminology is capable of systematic elaboration. (RBW)

Reports on a study of language learners' comprehension of speech acts and discourse functions, referred to as pragmatic comprehension. Analyzes two types of learners' pragmatic misunderstandings: their failure to distinguish between phatic talk and referential talk, and their failure to identify the intended illocutionary force of indirect speech…

Discusses assignments in discourse analysis and students' recurring methodological errors. (PD)