Neil Gaiman's "The Graveyard Book" (2009) charts the story of Nobody Owens, a boy who is adopted by supernatural entities in the local graveyard after his family is murdered. This article draws on the notion of the "construed reader," and combines two cognitive stylistic frameworks to analyse the opening section of the novel.…

The author analyzed an attempt to increase authenticity of writing in a middle school English language arts classroom. Drawing on a grounded theory of authenticity developed based on stated needs of a diverse group of students, the author and classroom teacher designed curriculum that sought to help students choose a valued topic, emphasize…

This concise handbook helps educators write for the rhetorical situations they will face as students of education, and as preservice and practicing teachers. It provides clear and helpful advice for responding to the varying contexts, audiences, and purposes that arise in four written categories in education: classroom, research, credential, and…

First-year composition courses must balance a range of writing instruction priorities including genre and audience awareness with language instruction, particularly for second-language writers. Despite the attested efficacy of "dynamic" written corrective feedback for language gains in intensive English programs, little research has…

This study investigated the use and functions of metadiscourse markers in English as a foreign language (EFL) virtual classroom during the Covid-19 pandemic. The study examined which metadiscourse markers--interactive or interactional--were used more frequently and how they were employed in an EFL context. It explored two interactive metadiscourse…

A sense of audience is important in the development of student writing (Many & Henderson, 2005). Research shows students need to consider an audience's attitudes, beliefs, and expectations to be effective writers (Midgette, Haria, & MacArthur, 2007). Therefore, students need learning opportunities in L2 classrooms to develop this ability.…

For the duration of the author's fifteen-year career, she has used authentic writing opportunities to engage students. She begins as their teammate, and invites each student to work with her on a poem. In working collaboratively, students realize the author is there not to downgrade their piece, to chastise mistakes or to belittle errors; she is…

Purpose: Turnover of presidents in colleges and universities occurs frequently and new presidents are rarely trained to handle communication with the range of stakeholders involved in a campus community, which is one of the most complex tasks their job requires. New presidents need guidance and insight to prepare them for this vital aspect of…

When two people interact, reference presentation is shaped with the intention of supporting addressee understanding, allowing for ease of acceptance, thus minimizing overall collaborative effort. To date, analysis of such "audience design" has focused largely on adult-adult or adult-child interaction but seldom on adult-teenager…

This study aims to identify the interactive metadiscourse markers in the main sections of the articles (introduction, method, findings, results, discussion and conclusion) in the fields of science and social sciences. Designed as a descriptive research, this study employs the survey model. The articles analyzed in this study are a total of 16…

This paper investigates what matters to medical domain experts when setting standards on a language for specific purposes (LSP) English proficiency test: the Occupational English Test's (OET) writing sub-test. The study explores what standard-setting participants value when making performance judgements about test candidates' writing responses,…

Visual representations, such as pathway models, are increasingly being used to both communicate higher education science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education program evaluation plans as well as accurately represent complex programs and the systems within which the educational programs reside. However, these representations…

Thematic analysis of interviews with 22 managers highlight their perspectives on exemplary and unacceptable workplace communication skills. Exemplary skills were perceived to be relatability, documentation, and audience awareness/adaptation, while unacceptable skills were verbal aggression, deception, and defensive communication behaviors. The…

In recent years, research in multimodality has established the benefits of using multiple semiotic modes like image, sound, and text in digital second language (L2) communication. However, researchers have yet to investigate how L2 learners make meaning through embodied modes--or gestures and facial expressions. Grounded in the social semiotic…

Power distance (PD), a cultural value denoting acceptance of asymmetrical power relationships, influences the force of rhetoric used by a writer to address their reader. However, AI technologies such as ChatGPT lack an explicit awareness of PD, which could affect the quality of AI-generated persuasive texts used for language learning. To…