The present dissertation extracted 17,291 questions from Aki, Ryo, and Tai and their mother's spontaneously produced speech data available in the CHILDES database (MacWhinney, 2000; Oshima-Takane & MacWhinney, 1998). The children's age ranged from 1;3 to 3;0. Their questions were coded for (1) yes/no questions that include a sentence-final…

Purpose: The paper argues that the diatextual analysis could be considered a psycho-cultural path of critical discourse analysis because it stresses the role of hermeneutical procedures in catching the inter-subjective nature of meanings. The purpose of this paper is to discuss these theoretical speculations in light with some empirical evidences…

Citizen-led assessments were developed in the mid-2000s to gather evidence on children's learning outcomes following the rapid increase in primary student enrolment in the developing world. Integral to their philosophy is social accountability and community engagement. While most large-scale assessments focus on test-based accountability to…

Background: The teaching of writing in English First Additional Language (EFAL) classrooms remains less explored in the Further Education and Training Phase (FET) in South Africa. This is so despite research showing a decline in the writing skills of second language learners, especially at the FET phase, calling attention to how writing is taught.…

This research is a multi-aspect exploratory investigation of Russian English institutional written discourse and highlights its features demonstrated by Russian native learners, tertiary students of English for the tourism and hospitality industry. The author approaches the theme from the perspectives of World Englishes and the pedagogical agenda.…

Adored worldwide for its 'outstanding' education system, Finland has relied on its excellent results in studies of the Programme for International Student Assessment to advertise and sell its education abroad. One of the keys to this success is often attributed to Finnish teachers, who are said to be 'the best and most respected in the world'.…

This article deals with communicative functions of laughter and smiling in the classroom studied using a conversation analytical approach. Analysing a corpus of video-recorded French first-language lessons, we show how students sequentially organise laughter and smiling, and use them to preempt, solve or assess a problematic action. We also focus…

This work utilizes Foucault's articulations on the power strategies of our contemporary society. To him the subject's constitution is never a purely passive effect of power on the subject but requires the subject's own activity. This necessitates the existence of a dynamic, mutually affecting relationship, implying that one can be both dominated…

Higher education systems in Central and Eastern Europe have faced numerous challenges in their transitions following the collapse of totalitarian regimes in 1989-1990. Romania, as a country that is representative of the specificities of this particular region, as well as a relatively new member of the European Union, is a privileged site for…

This article investigates interactional processes by which students from non-dominant groups develop academic identities within schools that privilege the dominant group. It draws on an ethnographic study of an urban magnet school, focusing on a discourse analysis of conversations between 3 eighth-grade girls. Findings include that students…

The goal of this article is to contribute to understanding the interplay between students' disciplinary engagement and their identity construction. The term appropriation, borrowed from scholars in linguistics and education, was chosen to capture this broader sense of productive learning that sits at the nexus of disciplinary engagement and…

This paper addresses language policy and policy-making in Canada as forms of discourse produced and reproduced within systems of power and racial hierarchies. The analysis of indigenous language policy to be addressed here focuses on the historical, political and legal processes stemming from the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism…

The paper explores the use of varied semiotic resources in the linguistic, social and cultural practices of young adults in the context of Bangladesh and Mongolia. Based on a translinguistic analysis (including pre-textual history, contextual relations, sub-textual meaning, intertextual echoes and post-textual interpretation) of these practices,…

The purpose of this article is to highlight the power of popular discourse in shaping public policy debates concerning educational access and opportunity for historically marginalized and minoritized students, especially for Latinas/os. I argue that proponents of race-conscious policies would do well to challenge the elimination of affirmative…

This paper reports on a qualitative study of journal entries written by students in six health professions participating in the Interprofessional Health Mentors program at the University of British Columbia, Canada. The study examined (1) what health professions students learn about professional language and communication when given the…