Shows that among the qualities of interaction present in peer learning are the negotiation of teaching and collaborative roles, attention-focusing, showing and pointing, and informative messages. (FL)

Identifies three sociological dimensions that constrain the selection, production, interpretation, and reporting of verbally manipulative behaviors; discusses two texts illustrating the dimensions; and examines some problems of conceptualization and measurement. (FL)

Delineates a study showing that jurors arriving at different verdicts differ in the way they compute verdicts from a common evidence base rather than in the structure of their evidence bases. Concludes that the legal system's distinction between evidence comprehension and verdict deliberation is a defensible one. (Author/FL)

Discusses the ellipsis of major sentential elements as a pervasive grammatical phenomenon in Japanese conversation and demonstrates its relevance for current theories of discourse or text analysis. (FL)

Reveals that (1) structural importance and not serial position was the better guide to recall, (2) children were able to sequence properly with few idiosyncratic interferences, and (3) younger children recalled main events, as well as did older children--improved recall with age was primarily for filler events. (FL)

Reports findings from three experiments designed to show how readers inferred spatial information relevant to a story character's movements through a previously memorized layout of a fictional building. Examines how inference measures are related to spatial imagery. (HB)

Investigates changes in the internal structure of semantic categories as a result of cultural transition. Examines typicality shifts in semantic categories of Jewish Argentine immigrants in Israel. Presents a model mapping typicality shift patterns onto acculturation patterns. (HB)

Examines how students in a bilingual third-grade classroom coconstruct knowledge through oral and written discourse. Explains that, by analyzing the various interactional patterns of the class, the multiple opportunities for learning become visible. Demonstrates how a group of students achieved the common task of writing a "planet story." (PA)

Explores how children's performance on picture description tasks in French, their limited-use language, compares to their performance on the same tasks in English. Investigates whether home language environment has an effect on performance. (SR)

Analyzes a sequence of grammar instruction in a fifth-grade classroom to investigate how familiar instructional objects called problems, answers, errors, and solutions are made visible to the cohort. Discusses an "essential instructional fiction" which is essential to the coherence of the lesson in hand and which may hold relevance for…

Reports findings from a think-aloud protocol study of reading, writing, and persuasive processes in legal discourse during an actual appellate court case. Discusses three aspects of advocates' use of persuasive techniques in written appeal briefs. Focuses on specific persuasive techniques utilized by attorneys. (HB)

Proposes a model of the reader's understanding of simple narrative texts, such as fables. Tests this model by using point generation and fable comprehension data from adult subjects. Identifies three components needed for understanding a fable's moral. Argues that data support the theory propounded. (HB)

Investigates how context exerts effects the meaning system that enables assessing meaning units, consisting of referent and meaning value. Reveals four kinds of effects of context on meaning. Analyzes the findings of the two studies undertaken, and discusses their implications. (HB)

Investigates the coherence of nonstandard discourse linguistic sources. Provides examples, such as experimental writing and schizophrenic speech, that establish the necessity of the coherence mechanisms. Emphasizes that, by ignoring nonstandard samples, researchers overlook powerful ways to test theories of discourse. (HB)

Studies the discourse competence of mentally retarded residents of a group home by examining their arguments. Shows how their arguments exhibited useful patterns and gave evidence of being an acceptable and sought after discourse genre. Outlines the features of the residents' argument patterns. (HB)