In this article, the authors present parent-educator conversations, which were selected to illustrate common communication patterns and provide links to some of the Division for Early Childhood of the Council for Exceptional Children's recommended practices for communicating and collaborating with parents. Using conversation analysis, researchers…

Examines "delayed completion," a procedure speakers use to finish an incomplete turn after an intervening utterance by another speaker. Describes delayed completion as a device for resolving overlap. Examines relationship to interruption and to sequences of actions in conversation. (MS)

Traces the rhetorical relationship between the ritual path taken by each rhetor and the types of messages they leave behind at the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial in Washington D.C., especially in the rhetoric "as addressed" to an audience. Reveals the interplay of ritual choice and message. (MS)

Explains sharp inconsistencies in Edmund Burke's rhetorical abilities by exploring two distinct conceptions of rhetoric: rhetoric as an instrument of prudential reason and as an existential means of constituting oneself. Examines Burke's private correspondence to show how this struggle between rhetorical prudence and rhetorical heroism generated…

Presents a sequential model describing routine telephone openings. Tests a model against tape recorded and transcribed data in naturally occurring telephone openings. Finds a distinct minority of telephone openings proceed precisely as the model might predict, but that routines do provide templates against which emergent usages are marked. (MS)

Contends that the contradictory research on conversational interruptions may be traced not only to definitional inconsistencies, but to the empirically tenuous concept of "interruption." Asserts that "onset" and "resolution" are more rigorous and describable procedures. (MS)

Analyzes a segment of conversation in which one participant repairs the broken-off utterance of another. Finds that utterance design and sequential placement play key roles in this accomplishment. Argues that context is an ongoing achievement of such practices of utterance design and sequential placement. (MS)

Proposes viewing journalists as members of an interpretive community (not a profession) united by its shared discourse and collective interpretations of key public events. Applies the frame of the interpretive community to journalistic discourse about two events central for American journalists--Watergate and McCarthyism. (SR)

Argues that meaning in a rhetorical work results from an interaction between discursive form and representational content linguists call "iconicity." Illustrates this approach through close analysis of passages selected from Edmund Burke's "Speech to the Electors of Bristol." Considers applications in broader contexts. (KEH)

Examines how interlocutors' beliefs about each other's goals affect conversational references, comparing pairs who were either informed or noninformed about the goal difference, or misinformed that goals were the same. Finds that misinformed and noninformed pairs overlooked clues that may have signaled the goal discrepancy, made conversational…

Compares the communicative effectiveness of spontaneous monologues and dialogues on nonparticipating addressees overhearing talk. Finds that overhearers were more accurate at following instructions in a referential communication task when listening in on dialogues than when listening in on monologues. Suggests greater number of discourse markers…

Recent models of metadiscourse proposed by Joseph M. Williams and William J. Vande Kopple are collections of disparate structures instead of principled systems--they do not contain rules to explain the interdependencies of their categories. Metadiscourse should be redefined as a category within the larger context of speech act theory.…

Based on an investigation of 207 of United States Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas's opinions concerning the First Amendment, this paper argues for the existence of a rhetorical genre grounded in the jurisprudence known as "legal realism." The paper begins with an overview of the philosophy of legal realism that leads to a…

Examines the strategic coordination of local and global textual resources in conversations of dyads with three different patterns of interaction involvement. Finds the dyads seemed to rely on integrated discourse strategies leading to the use of unified configurations of discourse resources. (MS)

Offers a general introduction to the concept of "going meta," in which prior communications are made the subject of communication. Provides brief illustrations of its far-reaching applications to the study of rhetoric and communication. Describes going meta as a rhetorical balancing act, and illustrates this using televised political…