Explores the assumptions underlying the use of composition textbooks based on nineteenth-century forms and modes of discourse: description, narration, exposition, and argumentation. Presents alternatives to this approach, developed from schema theory and developmental psychology. (HTH)

Explores possible benefits of placing considerations of genre as more central to dialogs and debates about language arts education. Aims for a theoretical framework emphasizing the responsive and agentive engagement of students working through disciplinary literacies. Considers ways in which one first-grade teacher helped a non-middle-class…

Examines the in-class essay as written by university freshmen to assess the extent to which students use formulaic expressions to minimize the cognitive burden of generating a coherent and adequate answer. Results show that students made extensive use of formulaic expressions and shaped their answers to reflect the way the information had been…

Investigates the relationship between redundancy and transposition in scientific texts. Highlights different traditional and discoursal theories of redundancy. Analyzed 20 self-contained scientific texts; results show that most of the sample texts follow similar organization. (Author/VWL)

Discusses the relationship of gender and discourse types, including epistolary and expository, in computer-mediated communication such as listservs. Describes a study that used transcript analysis to determine whether gender patterns could be detected in an online graduate course and considers the strategic value of discourse styles in group…

Examines cohesive ties that children and adults use during verbal explanations to resolve incongruent discourse information. Identifies age-related changes in children's use of adversatives and causal connectives. Finds less use of personal referents and demonstratives among preschoolers, and no decreased use of additives and temporal connectives…

Examines the transitions that writers (college seniors enrolled in a 12-week corporate internship program) make when moving from academic to professional discourse communities. Reports a consistent pattern of expectation, frustration, and accommodation as writers adjust to their new writing communities. (MM)

In an effort to reinsert mathematical language into everyday discourse, this article considers the following: an undergraduate early childhood curriculum class, analogical discourse in relation to mathematical language, and the ways in which analogical language aids recovery of the things that bind humankind to the earth and to each other. (IAH)

Discusses the potential value of feminist poststructuralism to feminist psychologists seeking more satisfactory ways of theorizing gender and subjectivity. Explores the following concepts related to this theoretical perspective: (1) approaches to knowledge; (2) language; (3) discourse; (4) subjectivity; and (5) experience as text. Presents an…

Argues that negative assumptions about demagogues have precluded an adequate understanding of demagogic discourse and its functionality and appropriateness in certain rhetorical situations. Discusses the social movement perspective which employs a "social construction of reality" approach, and analyzes the discourse of Louis Farrakhan…

Reports on two lab experiments which explored how undergraduate students process arguments and cues under ambiguous and uncertain conditions. Asks whether students use simultaneous processing or prefer exclusive processing. Indicates that students prefer exclusive processing, with no support for simultaneous. (HB)

Provides a close study of the ways writing teachers "gender" themselves and their students. Gives extensive narrative description of how one writing teacher worked closely with two of her students and how this work shaped concepts of gendered selves for all three participants. (HB)

Analyzes Mark Twain's novel, "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," to determine the ways in which the masculine is constructed by a series of forces or discourses. Argues that this novel articulates the social construction of gender in a manner similar to Michel Foucault's theory of disciplinary discourses. (HB)

Investigates the pragmatic input of parents and the ways it contributes to preschoolers' acquisition of pragmatic competence (the appropriate use of language in social situations). Analyzes audiotapes of five families' interactions over a one-year period. Discusses results of research and offers insight into preschoolers' growth in pragmatic…

Outlines the current situation in critical pedagogy, and examines the relation of language to formation of subjectivity and praxis. How language works to construct and mediate reality and interacts with experience is explored, and provisional elements of a critical pedagogy that has the potential to create active learners are presented. (SLD)