Examined strategies used by 12 kindergarten nonreaders who tried to relate spoken words to segments of written sentences. Results suggest that children may first succeed in establishing correspondences between temporal order of spoken words and spatial order of written words when a sentence contains only one functor word. Results show the complex…

Presents diverse theories and concepts of style. A step-by-step analytical procedure for the stylistic examination of texts is provided, which ranges from a brief summary to which other levels of analysis are related, through diction, register tone, punctuation, clausal and sentence types, paragraphing, schemes of construction, and figures of…

A model is described for the analysis of information management and cohesion in written discourse. Concepts of discourse analysis are defined, specifically information management, syntax, semantic reference, lexicon, cohesion, and intonation, with examples taken from scholarly publications in psychology, biology, and history. (48 references) (VWL)

Investigates the extent of variation in children's language performance in a picture description task arising from mode (oral or written) versus degree of demand for decontextualization. Finds that children manipulated the wide range of the oral form of the contextualized/decontextualized continuum more skillfully than the written form. Finds no…

Steps aside from conventional ideas about diagrams to examine how they work. Brings to bear ideas from a perceptual psychologist, a communication theorist, and a philosopher. Introduces the papers in this special issue as diagrams for worldmaking. (SR)

Reviews and discusses claims for, and objections to, the literal intelligence of computers and of documents. Topics discussed include contrasts between spoken language and written language; the Turing test, including linguistic responses to questions; the presence or absence of intentionality; and Plato's "Phaedrus" and its concern with…

Using a large database of written text and a simple statistical technique, this study looks at the issue of teaching conditionals and other "if" forms. (four references) (JL)

Looks at the established theory that the verb "toru" in Old Japanese exhibits anomalous spelling. Careful examination of poems in "Kojiki,""Nihon shoki," and "Man'yoshu" shows that there were originally different verbs that later merged into one, "toru." These two verbs had different meanings. (Author/VWL)

Focuses on the rhetorical strategies for written business communication in Mexico. Explains the methods used to collect documents for examination, discusses several of these documents as they reflect Mexico's history and cultural value dimensions, and summarizes principles for designing written business communication for Mexico. (SG)

Takes a look at some of the specific applications of the Chinese system of writing in an attempt to resolve disagreements about the language's relative efficiency. Examines (1) the arrangement of characters in dictionaries and the look-up procedures; and (2) the process of composing and reproducing Chinese texts, including typesetting,…

Investigates the position of adverbial clauses in a subset consisting of 42 texts drawn from 6 text types, 3 from written English and 3 from spoken English. The article identifies factors influencing the position choice for various types of adverbial clauses. Findings indicate that clause length is not a significant positional factor. (nine…

Discusses dilemmas that confront authors who must decide whether to address a relatively restricted audience in their native tongue or compete for a much larger public by either learning more widespread language or relying on translations. Focus is on the issue of free or restricted exchange of texts. What happens when more authors and readers…

Discusses the teaching of Chinese characters in the second language context. To demystify the difficulty of learning characters, a few myths that surround them are examined. (Author/VWL)

Investigates the role of kanji in second language learners' reading comprehension of Japanese text. Explores how two subgroups of Japanese learners, with Chinese and non-Chinese backgrounds, approach text. (Author/VWL)

Reviews research that has been emerging from the availability of corpora on the grammar of spoken English. Presents arguments for the view that spoken and written language utilize the same basic grammatical repertoire, however different their implementations of it are. (Author/VWL)