This paper introduces the goals of the research project on which this special issue of "Linguistics and Education" is based. A case is made for considering contemporary education as saturated by and dependent on oral and written language, and on beliefs and practices that relate knowledge, talk, reading and writing. The project is directed at a…

This paper expands on the view that the documentation of the ways in which teachers and students produce definitions of such operational matters as "reading", "writing", "learning" and "knowledge" in classrooms is discoverable in the details of the speech exchange systems in those sites. The paper provides a brief introduction to applied…