A symposium on discourse analysis and language learning is summarized. Discourse analysis can be divided into six fields of research: syntax, the amount of syntactic organization required for different types of discourse, large speech events, intra-sentential cohesion in text, speech acts, and unequal power discourse. Research on speech events and acts, conversational analysis, and text analysis is reviewed. In each of these areas of inquiry, applied linguists have been concerned with three issues: the system underlying discourse units, aspects of discourse which promote or impede second language learning, and the validity of instructional materials which give examples of natural speech and formal discourse. The symposium papers demonstrate the wide range of perspectives on discourse analysis. (RW)