Developmental composition courses serve a sizable and growing number of Generation 1.5 students, or long-term U.S. resident language learners, and it is believed that language challenges may be part of Generation 1.5 writers' difficulty in controlling the academic register. The current study investigates possible similarities and differences…

New media are having a significant impact on science communication, both on the way scientists communicate with peers and on the dissemination of science to the lay public. Science blogs, in particular, provide an open space for science communication, where a diverse audience (with different degrees of expertise) may have access to science…

Writers typically produce their writing in bursts. In this article, the authors examine written language bursts in a sample of 33 children aged 11 years with specific language impairment. Comparisons of the children with specific language impairment with an age-matched group of typically developing children (n = 33) and a group of younger,…

This study examines how Japanese students perceive the qualities of written arguments that were constructed to have different forms. Based on the theoretical dimensions of verbal communication styles that Gudykunst and Ting-Toomey (1988) proposed, the research questions asked whether the respondents would perceive direct arguments to be of higher…

Informally recognized by the tribal council in 1821, the 86-character Cherokee writing system invented by Sequoyah was learned in manuscript form and became widely used by the Cherokee within the span of a few years. In 1827, Samuel Worcester standardized the arrangement of characters and print designs in ways that differed from Sequoyah's…

Using archival admissions records and case histories of patients at a British asylum from the 1860s to the 1870s, the authors examine the medical certification process leading to the asylum confinement of individuals judged to be "of unsound mind." These institutional texts are, the authors suggest, "occult genres" that function as complex acts of…

Using rhetorical genre theory and research on reported speech, this study investigates the citation practices in 81 forensic letters written by paediatricians and nurse practitioners that provide their opinion for the courts as to whether a child has experienced maltreatment. These letters exist in a complex social situation where a lack of…

Many recent studies on computer-mediated communication (CMC) have addressed the question of orality and literacy. This article examines a relatively recent subgenre of CMC, that of written online sports commentary, that provides us with written CMC that is clearly based on firmly established oral genres, those of radio and television sports…

Young children are growing up in a time when literacy practices and textual productions are in flux. Yet literacy curricula, particularly for those deemed "at risk," are tightly focused on the written language "basics." What are the potential consequences? In this article, the author considers this question, drawing on an ethnographic study of…

This study examines the factors influencing language and script choice in instant messaging (IM), a form of real-time computer-mediated communication, in a multilingual setting. Grounded in the New Literacy Studies, the study understands IM as a social practice involving texts, encompassing a range of literacy practices, within which a subset…

A number of studies have found that writers produce text in bursts of language. That is, when creating a text, writers produce a few words, pause, produce a few more words, pause, and so on. Chenoweth and Hayes (2003) hypothesized that language bursts occur when writers translate ideas in to new language. This study tested this hypothesis against…

Using a method of topical rhetorical analysis, inspired by K. Burke, to discuss the Ebonics debate, this article demonstrates that conversations about education, particularly writing instruction, have adopted a market rhetoric that limits teachers' agency. However, reappropriation of this market rhetoric can help writing teachers to imagine and…

Chinese characters are often viewed as a premodern or incomplete form of literacy. Authors with an autonomous view of literacy view Chinese as a concrete, homeostatic language inadequate for use in abstract thought and movement toward mass literacy. Even those with an ideological model framework propose that the intrinsic nature of Chinese…

This study investigates the roles of biological and psychological gender, as well as assigned discussion topic, in the written language use of nonprofessional writers. University students wrote passages on three specific topics-one socioemotional and descriptive, one functional, and one involving political debate. Effects of biological gender were…

How should the relationship between immediate interaction and verbal convention be understood? The present article argues that dialogism transcends the distinction between interactionist and constructionist social theories of written communication, as presented by Nystrand and colleagues. The theoretical argument is illustrated by a study of one…