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Feedback is a term used so frequently that it is commonly taken that there is a shared view about what it means. However, in recent years, the notion of feedback as simply the provision of information to students about their work has been substantially challenged and learning-centred views have been articulated. This paper employs a corpus linguistics approach to analyse the use of the term 'feedback' in research articles published in key higher education journals on the topic over two five-year periods: 2009–2013 and 2015–2019. Analysis focused on the most common noun modifiers of 'feedback' and nouns modified by 'feedback', verbs with 'feedback' as the object, possessors of 'feedback', and prepositions representing an action or concept on or with 'feedback'. Whilst the analysis demonstrated that transmission-focused conceptions dominate publications on feedback, linguistic signifiers of a shift over time in representation of feedback away from a transmission-focus towards a learning-focus were evident within each grammatical relation category. The data indicate that the term 'feedback' is used by different authors to refer to very different representations of the concept, and the paper proposes that greater clarity in the representation of feedback is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attends to languaging in the context of visually oriented communities of sign language users through the concept of chaining. I define chaining as the patterned, routine ways of interlinking different linguistic and multimodal elements. The goal of this paper is to discuss the concepts of chaining, languaging and remodalisation through practical examples. The material for the paper comes from two ethnographic research projects which examine the use of multiple signed and spoken languages via different modalities in educational contexts. Both projects take a point of departure in ethnography and multimodal approaches towards interaction stemming from mediated discourse analysis. By examining the multimodal and multilingual practices, this paper aims at providing teachers and language learners with tools with which to reflect upon complex and often unnoticed resources used in everyday interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article used a critical discourse approach to understand how linguistic practices in the South African media construct international immigrants of African origin. We created an 88 000-word corpus of online South African news articles on immigrants from 2008 to 2020, which we then uploaded onto a corpus analysis software, Sketch Engine. Through the software, we were able to generate patterns of language use in the construction of immigrant identity and subject position in the media. While most literature on South Africa has focused on the violence associated with xenophobia, this paper zeroes in on 'the language of xenophobia' to provide a good reflection of the sociological construction of 'self' and 'other' in the country. By examining the discursive practices of the media on foreign nationals, the paper maps out not only the circulation but also the reproduction of power, social relations and other sociologies behind the prejudices that inform xenophobia in all its various forms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role of modality resources (e.g. "may," "often") in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) in representing behavioral pathology focusing, in particular, on Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). ADHD diagnosis requires reports of non-practitioners (e.g. carers and teachers); an effective understanding of behavioral descriptors by the lay community is thus of paramount importance. The study combines qualitative linguistic discourse analysis and a corpus approach to study the presence and functions of modality, adopting a Systemic Functional perspective toward language. The study argues that in the DSM-5 modality is an important linguistic resource for conveying clinical significance, inferred from graduations of recurrence and probability. However, adopting features of professional discourse in representing behavioral pathology for non-experts, especially when those resources are inherently evaluative, stresses the need of health literacy among the lay social community and accessibility in health communication materials, particularly when non-practitioners are involved in the diagnosis practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we offer three paths for the development of innovation in speech-language pathology (SLP), which enhance the discipline's capacity to address issues of diversity, inclusion and cultural responsiveness: transdisciplinary theoretical research, researcher reflexivity, and changes in ethical standards. First, we engage in a reflective conversation to identify facilitators and barriers to innovation we have encountered as academics who speak and write from personal and professional positionings that move between the privileged and the marginalised. Second, we present the results of a critical discourse analysis of the 2020 revisions to Speech Pathology Australia's Code of Ethics and characterise recent changes in the field's expanding understanding of ethical research and clinical practices. Third, we discuss how speech-language pathologists might reconsider their modes of engagement with clients and research populations in our shared area of specialisation—transgender voice. Together, these insights can support speech-language pathologists in further developing a contemporary, self-reflective, culturally humble and responsive professional culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coherence is the quality that distinguishes discourse from a random collection of sentences. People with aphasia have been reported to produce less-coherent discourse than non-language-impaired speakers. It is largely unclear how coherence is established in natural language and what leads to its impairment in aphasia. This paper presents a cross-methodological investigation on coherence in the discourse of Russian native speakers with and without aphasia. The purpose of this study was to examine the connection between language impairments in aphasia and different aspects of discourse coherence in order to determine the linguistic mechanisms that could be involved in establishing and maintaining it. Coherence was operationalised as a combination of four aspects: informativeness, clarity, connectedness, and understandability. Twenty participants were asked to retell the content of a short movie. The retellings were annotated using Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST), a formalistic framework for discourse-structure analysis. Next, they were evaluated for coherence on a four-point scale by trained raters. The ratings were compared between groups. A classification analysis was performed to determine whether the ratings could be predicted based on the macrolinguistic variables collected from the RST annotations and several microlinguistic variables previously linked to coherence. Retellings produced by speakers with aphasia received lower ratings than those of control participants on all aspects of coherence. The results indicate that different combinations of microlinguistic and discourse-structure variables play a role in establishing each of the coherence aspects. Our results provided supporting evidence on coherence impairment in aphasia. Perception of a discourse as more or less coherent was associated with both microlinguistic and macrolinguistic variables, with different combinations of variables relevant for each of the aspects. Furthermore, we found that discourse structure plays an important role, especially for understandability. We speculate that pragmatic knowledge shared by interlocutors may boost the coherence of aphasic discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we analyze online discussion threads related to national belonging in Finland, Denmark, and France. These discussions are all related to immigration and the definition of 'legitimate' citizens. Our approach is empirical: the goal is to show how in-groups and out-groups are construed linguistically and discursively in the data and how the interactants negotiate membership categories and express their opinions regarding them. The most important in-group in the datasets consists of the nationals born in the country, whereas the out-group par excellence is formed by Muslims. The data show how the boundaries of national communities are performatively constructed through the everyday discourse of online fora, which constitute an important arena of societal debate today. This discourse draws its force from the reiteration of stereotypical generalizations and the power attached to the written word in a communication environment enabling an efficient dissemination of ideological discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Codeswitching and discourse markers are proposed as potentially compensatory means to promote fluency in bilingual people diagnosed with nonfluent aphasia. Aim: This paper examined four linguistic markers of aphasia and fluency—grammaticality, complexity, codeswitching, and discourse markers—in the narratives of a bilingual speaker, in order to assess whether and to what extent these phenomena are manifested in the two languages of a person with aphasia. Methods & Procedures: Sixteen narratives per language were collected, using a cue word procedure, from a 59-year-old Yiddish–English bilingual with diagnosed moderate nonfluent aphasia. Analyses of frequency and locus of ungrammaticality, sentence complexity, codeswitching, and discourse markers were conducted as well as motivations for codeswitching. Outcomes & Results: Findings showed more ungrammaticality in English (L2) than Yiddish (L1), relatively similar levels of complexity, and very similar use of discourse markers in both languages. Codeswitching was more prevalent in Yiddish (L1), motivated by lexical access difficulties, whereas in English (L2), codeswitching was motivated both by lexical access and cross-linguistic lexicalization differences. Conclusions: Differential use of codeswitching across the languages of a bilingual person with nonfluent aphasia shows that different strategies are used to enhance fluency and compensate for ungrammaticality in each language. Clinically, the study shows the importance of assessment in both languages, and suggests that intervention in both languages should be considered pending further investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The contemporary retheorisation of affect is impacting on an increasingly wide range of disciplines/inter-disciplines in the human sciences. Of particular relevance for this paper are, on the one hand, the emphasis on embodiment and, on the other, the ideas of “flow”, “intensity” and “contagion”. Together, these challenge traditional views of affect as equivalent to emotion, emanating from the self and ending at the boundary of the self. Discourse studies has not yet been significantly influenced by the “affective turn” now taking place within social and cultural theory. It has largely maintained, albeit implicitly, the traditional view of affect. Yet, if all human interaction is inflected with affect, in the sense indicated above, a different model of discourse seems called for. This paper aims to make a contribution to the development of a new “affect-ed” discourse analytics by identifying a variety of linguistic and discursive phenomena that could contribute to such a project. We draw primarily on the work of linguistics, bringing to notice a range of phenomena that may be unfamiliar either because of their technicality or because of the problematic status of linguistics in much cultural theory. The paper proceeds via a brief genealogical account of current affect theory to note a range of language phenomena that have been or can be read in terms of individual feeling and suggests an analysis of several forms of interaction re-read in terms of affective contagion. This section of the paper constitutes a preliminary inventory of components of an affect-ed discourse analytics. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper analyzes traces of masculinity by examining Malaysian sports news, centralizing the discussion on emotions in sports news discourse. Specifically, it compares the depictions of male and female athletes in newspaper texts and (co)-construct masculinity and varying notions of emotion through corpus-assisted discourse analysis, including the ways in which these depictions on 'emotion' can help social workers in sport. By extracting a specialized corpus known as Malaysian Sports News, manual qualitative analysis paired with corpus linguistics techniques is used. The results will reveal sporadic examples of emotion-centered expressions that describe sports as a depiction of stereotypes of masculinity. We begin by locating past studies and making their connections, adapting some of the many research rigors by paying attention to specific findings that have been reworked in other important, global perspectives of social work. By focusing on corpus-assisted discourse analysis of athletes in newspapers, convergence and divergence between male and female athlete reporting highlighting implications of masculinities on social workers in sports and the recent 2018 APA Guidelines on Boys and Men can be established. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will examine how gastroenterologists and patients suffering from ulcerative colitis manage interactions in clinical settings, looking specifically at the management of talk across two primary discourse phases of clinical encounters (discovery and decision) and the co-construction of conceptual narratives and metaphors related to treatment. Grounded in recent literature on the practice of narrative medicine, this paper draws on discourse and metaphor analysis to deconstruct and interpret linguistic patterns of communication in 50 clinical interactions between gastroenterologists and patients. The goal of this paper is to provide medical research and healthcare practitioners with fresh insights into physician and patient behaviour in clinical settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Partnership and the integration of language and content teaching in English-medium schools have long been active areas of research and inquiry in applied linguistics and TESOL. However, most researchers have tended to focus on methods and techniques to use in the classroom or on the analysis of the linguistic demands of the content areas. Much less attention has been paid to researching the process of co-planning and co-teaching and to supporting the evolution of the partnership between ESL and content teachers. This paper draws on questionnaire and interview data collected as part of a school-based professional development initiative in an English-medium school in Asia that focused on developing more collaborative relationships between ESL and content/classroom teachers in a large culturally and linguistically diverse elementary school. The paper begins with an analysis of some of the underlying assumptions in current conceptualisations of effective collaboration between ESL and mainstream/content-area teachers, then presents an emerging framework that draws on teacher talk and critical discourse analysis to describe and evaluate the stages of collaboration and the different levels of its effectiveness. The implications of this research for evaluating approaches to partnership and for setting realistic goals for professional development and institutional change will also be explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our research focuses on bilingual adults enrolled in the Teachers for English Language Learners (TELL) program. TELL is a scholarship program whose goal is to increase the number of critically-minded bilingual educators in the state of Georgia in the United States. In this paper, we use critical discourse analysis to inform theoretical and practical implications in language education research. First, we examine how TELL scholars address linguistic and social inequities through discourses of competency and legitimacy, using critical discourse analysis to interpret social tensions in a group of these adults. Our analysis combines close discourse analysis of focus group interview data with the macro-theoretical approach of Foucault to understand the relationship between systemic influences (e.g., standardized, corporate testing) and the life world (e.g., having conversations in and about multiple languages) as these bilingual adults become bilingual teachers in Georgia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents extracts of three interactions that feature mediators with different roles: broker; dual-role mediator; professional interpreter. A discourse analysis examination employscategories of interpreter footing toshow how alignment to others indexes mediators’ role-relationships. At the micro-level, analysis shows the mediators’ sense of responsibility to the interaction as a social situation and to the positions and intentions of other participants. Mediators attempt to align to others in a way reflecting this, with varying consequences. The broker’s agency to assume a role of indirect recapitulator of another’s talk is not positively received and he re-assumes the role of responder in an intra-family dyad. The threat of breakdown in the communicative interaction compels the dual-role mediator to shift her role from reporter to non-interpreter principal. The professional interpreter provides collaborational re-presenting of talk to others retaining the role of reporter, sometimes switching to principal. Mediators’ agency and awareness of macro- then micro-level features, are located in the interactions. Discussion draws on work on intercultural communicationand reflective practice that locates interpreting as acomplex ethical and political activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In mainstream linguistics, context is either entirely ignored or dominantly viewed as an objective property of the external world. For instance, in sociolinguistics or pragmatics, scholars frequently attempt to learn about the meaning of words or sentences given certain social context. The social semiotic method presented in this paper challenges the objectivity of context and explores the dynamic between content and context from the perspective of Peircian semiotics. An episode of a children animations series,Bubble Guppies, where human-like mermaids learn about the mysteries of ancient Egypt, is used as a point of departure to show that content and context recursively co-construct with viewers’ participation. For instance, while there is little physical similarity between where the Guppies meet in the show’s story and a typical classroom, the context of a classroom is clearly established through the way the Guppies interact with each other and with objects they encounter. Additionally, the results indicate that learning is an important product of such context-construction, as TV viewers must constantly elaborate on events and link interactions that are perceived not as objects but as signs entangled in a growing web of symbolic system. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This is a position paper aimed at the interface between meaning-oriented linguistics generally and instructed language learning. The alliance between usage-based linguistics and form-focused instruction in language teaching stands to benefit from advances on both sides: a recognition by theoretical linguists that systematic meanings of grammatical forms are responsible for observed, emerging patterns of usage; and a greater willingness on the part of advocates of the teaching of grammar to engage in focusing upon individual, meaningful grammaticalforms, as distinct from unanalyzed, holisticform. Explicit knowledge of forms and their meanings can usefully guide the practice of teachers and, potentially, the performance of learners. Pending the wide availability of practical analyses, teachers' and learners' focused grammatical inquiry on authentic discourse can yield useful insights about both language structure and discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Elena Gorbova: Perfect Semantics in Russian and the Semantics of the Perfect in Spanish. The paper deals with the semantics of the Spanish perfect and its translation equivalents in Russian, employing data from parallel corpora. The analysis is performed against the background of typological views on the perfect as a cross-linguistic category. Along with the Spanish perfect, the semantics of its translation equivalents in Russian such as preterite finite forms (otkryl, napisal) and short-form passive participle constructions –(bylo) otkryto, napisano– are discussed as well. The analysis shows that Russian does not show any strong correlation between the perfect meaning on the whole and the use of perfective and imperfective aspects, although there is a strong tendency to express the experiential variant by the imperfective aspect. The perfect meaning is thus shared between the perfective and imperfective aspect clusters, and the general semantics of the perfect is best described as “current relevance.” [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Piracy off Somalia's coast has gained the imagination of the public and the attention of the media. Using critical discourse analysis, this paper considers stories about Somali piracy on the international BBC news website. A twin analysis is undertaken to determine how those involved in piracy and their actions are represented as well as how macro-discursive strategies of legitimation are employed. An historical contextualisation of Somalia and piracy complements the analysis. These analyses reveal how news stories do not focus on Somalis but on negative representations of pirates and positive representations of Western military powers. A number of linguistic strategies are identified that emphasise Western powers and articulate discourses that legitimate the continuing presence and actions of Western militaries. These discourses are drawn upon at the expense of discourses sympathetic to the plight of Somalis. These findings not only call into question the BBC's claims to objectivity, but also highlight the fact that stories do not promote conditions suitable for an end to piracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Several studies have shown that traditional standardised aphasia tests may not be sensitive enough to adequately assess linguistic deficits and recovery patterns in persons with aphasia. As a result, both functional and structural methods for the analysis of connected language samples from people with aphasia have been devised (see Armstrong, 2000; Prins & Bastiaanse, 2004). Aims: The present article focuses on our attempt to provide a comprehensive, multi-level procedure for both structural and functional analysis of narrative discourse produced by speakers with brain damage. Accordingly, we will describe a method for analysis of connected language samples elicited on single picture and cartoon story description tasks. This method has proven sensitive in the assessment of language deficits in many neurogenic populations. Methods & Procedures: A comprehensive description of the language production system, a thorough discussion of the different approaches to discourse analysis in persons with aphasia, and the procedure for the analysis of narrative discourse are detailed. The characteristics of the eliciting stimuli, the procedures for their administration and the transcription of the language samples are carefully explained. The analysis focuses on four main aspects of linguistic processing: productivity, lexical and grammatical processing, narrative organisation, and informativeness. To further illustrate the analytic procedure, two case reports and an appendix with the analysis of a narrative sample are provided. Outcomes & Results: We will provide direct evidence of the usefulness of the multi-level procedure for discourse analysis for assessing changes in discourse performance of two persons with fluent aphasia, with different aetiologies, that were not captured by traditional standardised aphasia tests. Conclusions: The method of analysis presented in this paper has strong grounds in linguistic and psychological theories of linguistic structure and functioning. It also has the advantage of being both quantitative and functional as it captures selective aspects of linguistic processing, and can provide relevant information about the person's communicative and informative skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-study is playing an increasingly important role in the learning and instruction of many subjects, including second and foreign languages. With the rapid development of the internet, language websites for self-study are flourishing. While the language of print-based teaching materials has received some attention, the linguistic and interactional features of websites are largely ignored by educationists, and online learning materials are regarded as simply duplicates of their print-based counterparts. This is far from satisfactory because web-based and print-based materials are very different tools with which participants negotiate their learning activities. This paper examines the linguistic and interactional features of English learning websites in terms of (1) their lexical density/clause length; (2) referential cohesion, particularly the use of personal pronouns; and (3) the presence of involvement strategies and other interactional features. These features are compared with those in textbooks to examine how websites deviate from traditional instructional texts. It is found that both clause and lexical density are greater on websites than in traditional textbooks. Websites make more use of the personal pronouns 'I' and 'you', whereas textbooks make more use of the authoritative 'we'. Websites are also more interactional in terms of their use of involvement strategies, imperative structures and modals. These findings highlight the different contexts of textbooks and websites, particularly the different nature of the two channels and their credibility as information sources. This has practical implications for the design of appropriate online instructional resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a method for computer-based analyses of metaphor in discourse, combining quantitative and qualitative elements. This method is illustrated with data from research on German newspaper discourse concerning the ongoing system transformations of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Methodological aspects of the research procedure are discussed and it is argued that quantitative elements can enhance comparability in cross-cultural and cross-lingual research. Some basic findings of the research are presented. The peculiarities of the German Wende discourse - especially the salience of a passive perspective on the ongoing political and social changes - are outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the era of big data, linguistic studies with quantitative methods have gained momentum. Ever since the approval of the project ‘Quantitative Linguistic Research of Contemporary Chinese’ in 2011, the research group led by Professor Haitao Liu has continued to investigate quantitative features of Chinese texts as well as other languages from four aspects, that is, quantitative research on a lexical level, on a syntactic level, and on other levels like phonemic, discourse, and semantic levels, as well as quantitative research based on the complex network approach. This group aims to explore universal laws of all languages while still paying attention to differences across different languages. In this project report, the main research papers published in the past five years are reviewed. Through these studies, we can find that the quantitative method has attracted the attention of Chinese linguists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intercultural cities – a joint initiative launched in 2008 by the European Commission and the Council of Europe – aims to develop a model supporting intercultural integration within diversified urban communities. This article examines, using methods of applied linguistics and discourse analysis, how intercultural urban policy is linguistically produced in the initiative. The examination indicates that the intercultural urban policy in the initiative is ‘negative politics’: the policy rhetoric commonly outlines the content of interculturalism by describing what is not included in it and what the policy is not about. The language used in the intercultural urban policy rhetoric presents the coexistence of distinct cultures as a problematic and conflicting issue. This contradicts the fundamental principle of the policy, which aims for co-operative and positive encountering between people in an urban environment. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this study, the concept of framing is applied in order to show differences in the conception of crime events in the genre of news texts across socio-cultural contexts. Three aspects of framing at the thematic, lexical and syntactic level are defined: occurrence, marked description and prominence and, accordingly, a corpus of one hundred crime-news articles in Dutch and Iranian national newspapers is analyzed. Taking a systematic and replicable approach, it was found that crime-news narratives in the two countries frame crime and crime-related events in different ways with regard to the representation of participants, actions and circumstantial elements. The implication of these different framing patterns is explained in terms of different socio-cultural contexts and discussed with regard to the discourse culture of journalism. The study has implications for further exploration of the interdependence of discourse, context and cognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An analysis of linguistics texts based on Indigenous community fieldwork raises questions of authority, contribution and accreditation of linguists and community representatives. The recommendations of various professional practice guidelines are considered, and possible theoretical understandings introduced. Uninterrogated writing practices may indicate underlying discourses which inhibit the development of collaborative principles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public speaking has been described as one of the most daunting tasks one can engage in, even more so for people with aphasia (PWA). Gavel Clubs (affiliated with Toastmasters International) were established over 20 years ago for those who want to engage in public speaking but do not meet the eligibility criteria for Toastmasters membership. This study is the first of its kind to systematically evaluate changes in the speeches of PWA attending a weekly Gavel Club. The aims were to compare Table Topics (TT) and Prepared Speeches (PS) which are two different tasks regularly performed in a Gavel Club; to measure linguistic change over time in the two speech types; and to determine the feasibility of a discourse measure for analysing public speeches. Thirty-six speeches (four each from nine PWA) were audio-recorded, transcribed and analysed using the Linguistic Communication Measure (LCM). The nine participants represented a wide range of aphasia severity. Analysis revealed that engaging in weekly speaking activities in the GC was associated with an improvement in conveying content and in grammaticality through an increase in total number of words and number of correct words produced. The LCM is a comprehensive analysis tool but proved to be challenging in its speed and utility when measuring linguistic change in public speeches of PWA. Regular GC participation appears to facilitate improved language abilities, but we have yet to find the best tool to demonstrate this. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous descriptions of discourse deficits following traumatic brain injury (TBI) at a macrostructural level have used analyses such as cohesion and story structure. This paper proposes a macrolinguistic analysis called generic structure potential analysis (GSP) (Ventola 1979) which describes the overall structuring of the unfolding process of two types of interviews. Seven TBI subjects are compared with matched control subjects across two conditions: a community education information-giving encounter to two 16 year old school students and an information requesting interaction with the researcher. The possible GSP elements of these types of encounters include greeting, identification, approaches which enable interactants to establish interpersonal links, centring which directly relate to the purpose of the interviews, leave-taking and goodbye. The GSP of student interactions was similar for TBI and control subjects but differences were noted in the researcher condition. The value of placing TBI subjects in information giving roles and the importance of the communication partner's contributions to the interaction is highlighted. GSP analysis allows the clinician researcher to analyse the interview context by taking the contextual configuration into account. It may provide a valuable clinical tool in the assessment and treatment of discourse deficits which commonly follow TBI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Competence in spoken discourse is an important consideration during assessment and intervention planning for adolescents with communication difficulties. Currently, a lack of age-appropriate protocols and reference data against which to interpret performance, are barriers when working with this population, particularly those that assess a range of genre and language features. Using a new assessment tool, the Curtin University Discourse Protocol-Adolescent (CUDP-A), this study aimed to collect and describe spoken discourse samples from a large group of adolescents (n = 160), aged 12 to 15 years, recruited to represent a mainstream academic cohort. For each participant, samples of recount (n = 3), expository (n = 3), persuasive (n = 3), and narrative (n = 2) discourse were described using theoretically supported measurements sensitive to micro-linguistic, micro-structural, macro-structural, and super-structural discourse features. Participants also completed a standardized assessment of oral language. Variability was found in micro-linguistic and micro-structural features, with stability seen in macro-structural and super-structural features. Few age- and gender-related differences were observed, while multiple significant correlations between spoken discourse and oral language variables were revealed across the sample. The CUDP-A was successful in eliciting spoken discourse across genres relevant to social and academic contexts, enabling an in-depth description of adolescent discourse. This tool, supported by the reference data, provides a new opportunity to assess spoken discourse skills in adolescents from clinical populations, e.g., acquired brain injury or developmental disorders. Further research is needed to examine factors influencing discourse ability, such as those that may be related to genre, or contextual factors related to the presence of communication partners, with novel tools such as the CUDP-A facilitating this. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we consider the crucial problem of providing 'coherence relation' analyses for natural texts. Among the several accounts currently being pursued, claims of broad compatibility usually combine simultaneously with a lack of detailed consensus. To improve on this situation, we take a selection of approaches from the current state of the art--ranging from theories rooted in functional linguistics to formal semantic discourse theory-and apply them to the concrete task of text analysis. Contrasting these analysis styles discloses a range of information assumed by the distinct approaches. We organize this information according to principles of linguistic "stratification," "metafunction," and "paradigmatic/syntagmatic axiality" in order to provide a bi-stratal, three-way classification system from which individual discourse structure relations can be motivated. This provides a more effective decomposition of the space of "discourse structure information" which at the same time synthesizes most previous views. We illustrate some of the benefits of the specification for linguistic analysis and point out problematic areas for future formal and computational specification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some argue that supporting minoritized students' "academic language" (AL) development fosters equity in education. Others contend that AL is hegemonic, and that attempts to teach it perpetuate inequities across racial, ethnic, social class, immigrant, and related sociocultural and linguistic student differences. In this article, we frame the topic of this special issue—interdisciplinary approaches to equity in teaching AL—and show how authors across positions and analytic methods examine the goals of teaching AL and recommend ways for educators to foster meaningful language awareness for students. Although substantive, unresolved disagreements between positions remain; we identify points of agreement as well, which we present to educators as interdisciplinary principles of equity in teaching. Namely, educators should 1) understand how language is more than just vocabulary; 2) recognize academic features in students' everyday talk; 3) develop awareness of language and its contexts of use with students, and 4) foster critical language awareness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: "Multimodal communication" is a relatively common term in aphasia research. However, the scope of studies on multimodal interaction in aphasia is generally restricted to one or two multimodal resources, and the type of discourse analysed is often not representative of authentic interaction. Finally, the interpersonal (versus referential) functions of multimodal resources are frequently overlooked. Aims: The purpose of this study was to explore the multimodal realisation of enactments by people with aphasia in everyday interaction. Methods & Procedures: Authentic interactions of six people with aphasia interacting with communication partners of their choice were systematically analysed. Frameworks originating from non-brain-damaged studies were applied to examine the characteristics and functions of linguistic, multimodal, and stance-taking resources used to realise enactments. Outcomes & Results: Even though the participants used the same multimodal resources as non-brain-damaged communicators, the frequencies and characteristics were different. The relationship between multimodal resources and interpersonal functions was different as well. Conclusions: People with aphasia use the same multimodal resources as non-brain-damaged communicators, indicating their retained strengths. However, their higher use of intonation, gesture, and – to a lesser extent – facial expression indicates that these may be important "meaning making" resources for them, which could be utilised more in therapeutic endeavours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the workings of the phrase tte yuu ka used as a "repair preface" in the context of replacing one formulation with another. We show that the use of tte yuu ka in the operation of replacement self-repair instructs the recipient to hear the repair solution as an alternative that is better suited for whatever purpose the speaker may be pursuing at the moment than the trouble-source formulation, without necessarily rejecting the latter as incorrect or inappropriate. We also demonstrate how this feature of tte yuu ka is used as a resource to accomplish situated interactional work in talk-in-interaction in both ordinary and institutional settings. Data are Japanese with English translation, with a few excerpts of English data cited from published research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We solve the argument mining problem by investigating discourse and communicative text structure. A new formal graph-based structure called communicative discourse tree (CDT) is defined. It consists of a discourse tree with additional labels on edges, which stand for verbs. These verbs represent communicative actions. Discourse trees are based on rhetoric relations, extracted from a text according to Rhetoric Structure Theory. The problem is tackled as a binary classification task, where the positive class corresponds to texts with arguments and the negative class corresponds to texts with no arguments. The feature engineering for the classification task is conducted, deciding on which syntactic and discourse features are associated with logical argumentation. Text classification framework based on syntactic, discourse and communicative discourse text structures with a number of learning approaches is implemented. Evaluation on a combined data-set is provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the matter of tipping point for disclosure and the necessity for deciding on a common set of outcomes for discourse which is also known as D-COS. It references the issue's article by authors Aimee Dietz and Mary Boyle. Topics discussed include the interest in discourse within aphasiology, the theoretical and methodological issues for the measurement of discourse and analysis of correct information units (CIUs) for the purpose.

The article presents arguments for the inclusion of conversation in a core outcome set for discourse (D-COS) for aphasia research and discusses the challenges posed with regard to the matter. It references the issue's article by authors Aimee Dietz and Mary Boyle. Topics discussed include implementation of D-COS, the observation of the management of co-construction of shared meaning in conversation by aphasia patients and the benefit of impairment-focused aphasia therapy.

Background: There is limited research on communicative recovery during the early stages after a severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) in adults. Methods and procedures: In the current study 43 people with severe TBI described a simple procedure at 3 and 6 months post injury and this was compared to the description provided by 37 healthy speakers. Linguistic productivity and the presence of macrostructural discourse elements were analysed. Main outcomes and results: No change occurred in productivity in the TBI group between the two time points. There was increased use of relevant information (macrostructure) over time for the TBI group, reflecting improvement. People with TBI differed from controls in speech rate and in two out of three macrostructural categories at both time points, indicating difficulties even after 12 weeks of recovery. Conclusions: Overall, the quality, rather than the quantity of discourse was disordered for participants with TBI. Findings indicate that procedural discourse is sensitive to discourse deficits of people with TBI and can be used to map recovery during the sub-acute phase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Language is one of the first faculties afflicted by Alzheimer’s disease (AD). A growing body of work has focussed on leveraging automated analysis of speech to accurately predict the onset of AD. Previous work, however, did not address the effects of AD on the structure of discourse in spontaneous speech and literature. Aims: Our goal is to identify the effects of AD on the structure of discourse, both in spontaneous speech and in literature. Methods & Procedures: We use two existing data sets, DementiaBank and the Carolina Conversations Collection, to explore how AD manifests itself in spontaneous speech. This is done by automatically extracting discourse relations according to Rhetorical Structure Theory. We also study written novels, comparing authors with and without dementia using the same tools. Outcomes & Results: Several discourse relations, especially those involving elaboration and attribution, are significant indicators of AD in speech. Indicators of the disease in written text, by contrast, involve relations of logical contingency. Conclusions: Our work highlights how AD can alter discourse structures in both spontaneous speech and written text. Future work should combine discourse analysis with previously studied lexico-syntactic features. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background: Linguistic discourse analysis is an assessment method widely applied within aphasia research literature to examine impairments as they affect the language of daily function—discourse. Although this literature suggests that clinical applications do occur, it also identifies barriers that may inhibit the translation of research to practice. Aims: This study aimed to identify the frequency of use and methods of linguistic discourse analysis application by speech pathologists when assessing their clients with aphasia. Methods & Procedures: A survey was distributed electronically to speech pathologists in five English-speaking countries using the online survey management tool Survey Monkey®. Clinical applications of linguistic discourse analysis were examined using descriptive statistics and cross-tabulation analyses. Outcomes & Results: Of 123 valid survey results, 106 clinicians reported use of linguistic discourse analysis to assess language in aphasia. Respondents collected language elicited in conversational contexts and expositional discourse samples most often, and subjected these samples to a range of linguistic measures. Most clinicians applied a judgement-based method of analysis based on clinical observation. Clinicians reported positive attitudes towards the use of linguistic discourse analysis, but were limited from widespread use by barriers such as a lack of available clinical time. Conclusions: Results revealed that speech pathologists defined and therefore implemented linguistic discourse analysis in a variety of ways. The methods used to elicit, prepare and analyse discourse varied among respondents. Further investigation is warranted to examine the effectiveness of clinical discourse analysis applications and to support the translation of evidence-based research methods to clinical practice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This review examined previous research applications of linguistic discourse analysis to assess the language of adults with aphasia. A comprehensive literature search of seven databases identified 165 studies that applied linguistic measures to samples of discourse collected from people with aphasia. Analysis of methodological applications revealed an increase in published research using linguistic discourse analysis over the past 40 years, particularly to measure the generalisation of therapy outcomes to language in use. Narrative language samples were most frequently subject to analysis though all language genres were observed across included studies. A total of 536 different linguistic measures were applied to examine language behaviours. Growth in the research use of linguistic discourse analysis and suggestions that this growth may be reflected in clinical practice requires further investigation. Future research directions are discussed to investigate clinical use of discourse analysis and examine the differences that exist between research and clinical practice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background: Discourse abilities play an important role in the assessment, classification, and therapy outcome evaluation of people with aphasia. Discourse production in aphasia has been studied quite extensively in the last 15 years. Nevertheless, many questions still do not have definitive answers. Aims: The aim of this review is to present the current situation in the research on a number of crucial aspects of discourse production in aphasia, focusing on methodological progress and related challenges. This review continues the discussion of the core themes in the field, aiming to render it as up-to-date as possible. Main Contribution: The review focuses on a number of unexplored theoretical issues, specifically, the interface between micro- and macrolinguistic abilities, and the relationship between linguistic competence and communicative success in aphasia. The emphasis on theoretical challenges, along with the thorough discussion of methodological problems in the field, makes this review a starting point and a comprehensive information source for researchers planning to address language production in people with aphasia. Conclusion: Although the picture is not yet complete, recent advancements lead to a better understanding of the processes involved in aphasic discourse production. Different approaches provide insights into the complex multifaceted nature of discourse-level phenomena; however, methodological issues, including low comparability, substantially slow down the progress in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

12 Understanding the structure of discourse in healthy adults is fundamental to the assessment and diagnosis of discourse level impairments in clinical populations and the development of effective treatment regimes. Exploring discourse genre in healthy speakers that extend beyond the traditional narrative is equally paramount in facilitating maximum impact of clinical interventions in everyday speaking contexts. This study aimed to characterise the discourse of 30 healthy adult speakers across three age groups (20-39, 40-59 and 60+ years) and four discourse genres (recount, procedural, exposition and narrative), drawing on discourse frameworks used in classroom teaching. A clinically useful discourse protocol and analytic procedure using SALT was developed that profiled the macrostructure and key aspects of linguistic microstructure of the different genres, exploring coherence and cohesion within and across genre in a systematic manner. Analyses considered whether there were differences in coherence and cohesion among the different age groups, different genres and specific topics. Results showed that, while individual variability was present, healthy adults structured their discourse consistently, adhering to the frameworks described in the developmental literature, across all four genres. Significant age differences were only seen in the amount of information contained in the body of the discourse (i.e. events, steps or statements offered) with older participants offering less information. This dataset will enable comparisons to be drawn with clinical populations to determine the utility and the feasibility of the use of this framework for diagnosis and intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although significant attention has been devoted to prosody in discourse production, relatively little is known about prosody's effect on discourse interpretation. This article explores the ability of synthetic manipulations of prosody to bias interpretation of discourse ambiguities where a first sentence is linked to two following sentences either by coordinating (Narration) or subordinating (Elaboration) discourse relations. In Experiment 1, manipulations of pitch, pause duration, and intensity were found to influence discourse interpretation. In Experiment 2, subsets of these prosodic contrasts were compared. A bias for more coordination interpretations was found only for subsets with rising pitch at the end of the first sentence, including one where that was the only contrast, showing that rising pitch alone can disambiguate discourse. Participants also expressed more confidence when choosing a coordination interpretation after hearing a rise or a subordination interpretation after hearing a fall. Results demonstrate that the discourse disambiguation ability of prosody goes beyond ambiguities of scope and reference to hierarchical ambiguities of coordinating and subordinating discourse relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Schools are sites in which heterosexuality is constructed as normal and sexualities which transgress this norm are silenced, often tacitly rather than actively. In this study, linguistic analysis is used to argue that, in school environments, homophobia and heterosexism are discursively realised as much through what isnotiterated as through what is explicitly stated or enacted. Elements of critical discourse analysis and speech act theory are used to examine how the language used in the English curriculum programme of study documents constructs certain ideologies about sexuality, and how this may be linked to the cultures of heterosexism and homophobia which, according to recent research, pervade UK schools. Findings reveal that there are marked absences around sexuality in the English curriculum encoded in the experiential values of its vocabulary. These silences are identifiable in classification schemes, over-lexicalisation of ideologically contested words and the semantic profiles created by the collocation patterns surrounding particular words. Drawing on speech act theory, I argue that the cumulative effect of these features is an ‘illocutionary silencing’ around sexual diversity in the English curriculum, which, in turn, effects a discourse of heterosexism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This special issue of Language and Education contributes to a distinctive and growing tradition of ethnographic and discourse analytic research on multilingual classroom interaction. To illustrate the nature and significance of the articles assembled here, this introduction provides a brief genealogy of this research tradition. We review two broad generations of studies, along with some of the different orienting theories and methodologies guiding the studies: (1) a first generation of research in multilingual classroom contexts that grew out of the field of linguistic anthropology in North America and (2) a second generation of studies, emerging from the early 1990s onwards, that developed critical, interpretive approaches to the study of multilingual classroom interaction. The second-generation studies were conducted in a wider range of research sites, including post-colonial settings, and they were explicitly framed with reference to language-in-education policies. We then introduce the five articles in this special issue. We argue that they represent a third generation of studies that are opening up new epistemological spaces at the interface with other fields of research, such as multimodality in classroom interaction or ethnography of language policy, while building on the robust foundation of first- and second-generation research in multilingual classrooms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study reports on the types of academic talk that contribute to enhanced explanatory responses, reasoning, problem-solving and learning. The study involved 10 groups of 3–4 students who were provided with one of three linguistic tools (i.e. Cognitive Questioning, Philosophy for Children and Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR)) to scaffold the questioning process and promote discussion during small group work. Groups were videotaped as they worked on inquiry-based science activities and the videotapes were fully transcribed to identify those helping discourses that contribute to productive talk and learning. In addition, three vignettes of students' discussions are also presented in order to illuminate the different types of productive talk that the students demonstrated in their groups. In the first vignette, the students predominately engaged in analogizing as a tool for constructing meaning. In the second, productive talk involved mainly asking questions and providing elaborations and statements while the third is characterized by questions, reasons, rebuttals and statements where students essentially demonstrate the full complement of discourses characteristic of productive academic talk. The study provides insights into how students appropriate various stratagems for talking and thinking together while simultaneously communicating their shared intentionality and motivation to complete the task. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

There are dedicated reference terms—in English—for self- and recipient reference (I and its grammatical variants for self; you and its grammatical variants for recipient). These terms are invariant across occasions of reference and, as such, are repaired much less commonly than are references to third persons. In this article, we focus on four types of “trouble” addressed by repair to self- and recipient reference: (a) indexing the wrong referent, (b) possible referential ambiguity in direct reported speech, (c) masked scope and/or constituent membership of referent, and (d) masked relevance of referent. We also show that repairs to self- or recipient reference are routinely not limited to fixing problems of understanding but are also used in the service of the interactional task at hand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article draws on naturally occurring talk-in-interaction to explore the use of unrepaired indexicals—specifically he, she, and they—to refer to third persons when there is no prior full-form reference. We show some of the local resources that participants use to understand the referent but focus predominantly on how locally initial indexicals can be used in the service of the interactional task at hand to: (a) establish continuity of focus (across sequences and across conversations) and (b) mute the relevance of a referent for the action of the turn. We discuss the implications of these findings for understanding the action of repair on locally initial indexical reference and show how our work contributes both to linguistic research on pronouns and to conversation analytic work on person reference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers the author's perspective on the articles of John Heritage on epistemics and its implications in linguistics. He states that Heritage's article on epistemic action provides an evidence for the dissolution of the relationship between linguistic form and function. He also comments on how the article provide an alternative way of treating knowledge.

The article offers the author's response on the comments made regarding his articles on epistemic in the sociology of knowledge. He looks into the roles of linguistic form and social context in the constitution of action. He also explores on the aspects of a theory of motivation in the social interaction among people.