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Disallowance of free speech and equitable speech exchange is apparent in not merely silence where one would normally have an expectation of speech, but also in a very particular type of language use on those occasions when speech is ventured. In this paper, I will suggest that the speaker verbally disenfranchises the hearer, or rescinds the right to free speech, by using a realization of a particular type of pragmatic assertion, one I will refer to as the assertion of linguistic 'disempowerment'. I will suggest that a felicitous pragmatic act of assertion is performed as a social contract that is put in place by conformity to certain felicity conditions, which are each a reflex of the right to free and equitable speech. When one or more of these conditions is violated, the assertion becomes infelicitous and an act of linguistic disempowerment is implicated. This implicated act is either an assertion in which the speaker linguistically disenfranchises the hearer, indexing, through this act, a taking on of the identity of the powerful. Or, it is an assertion in which the speaker linguistically disenfranchises himself/herself, indexing, through the act, the assumption of the identity of the subservient. Different kinds of infelicities implicate subtly different acts of speaker or hearer disempowerment, and index somewhat different kinds of assumed power or subservience. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

This paper identifies a set of writing conventions whose primary function is to monitor the development of a crucial component of narrative, the crisis of the story, but which are also customarily used by skilled writers to enhance the attention-getting power of their expository writing. The paper shows that ESL learners who have not learned to use these conventions in narrative also do not use them in essays. It is argued that there is a pedagogical advantage to learning the crisis conventions first in their narrative manifestation (where their function is transparent) and then applying them to the task of heightening the newsworthiness of the writer’s expository point.

A number of recent studies on tense in L2 have claimed that the past tense is acquired in developmental stages: verbs, such as 'build' and 'work,' which are lexico-aspectually more event-like (less state-like) are claimed to be marked for past tense earlier in the developmental process than those, such as 'be' and 'want,' which are less event-like (more state-like). In this paper, I will closely examine seven samples of writing by L1 speakers of Vietnamese to show that grounding, rather than lexical aspect, properly accounts for the selective marking of past tense. I will suggest that the learner-hypothesis that governs this use of English past tense derives from the transference of a grounding-marking principle from a tense-free language, and I will briefly address the pedagogical implications of this finding.

Comparison of 20 essays written by English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) beginners with prose of skilled writers suggests four constraints on information packaging are needed to facilitate identification of macrostructure. Results suggests that fragmentation in beginners' prose may be overcome if learners are made aware of the notion of macrostructure and taught to conform to four organizational constraints ensuring its accessibility.

Disallowance of free speech and equitable speech exchange is apparent in not merely silence where one would normally have an expectation of speech, but also a very particular type of language use on those occasions when speech is ventured. I want to draw attention to one aspect of this veiled way of speaking, what I will refer to as a corrupted use of the speech act of assertion. The felicitously made assertive depends in a very fundamental way on the right to free speech. This is because it conforms to a contract between speaker and addressee, which not only respects free speech but, more importantly, requires it. It is a contract realized in the form of certain felicity conditions (Searle, 1969) which are all in one way or another reflexes of the free speech requirement. In this paper, I will show the ways in which assertion becomes compromised in response to the absence of free speech and equity in speech exchange. I will show, in particular, that certain felicity conditions are violated under these circumstances and that this violation generates an implicature about the speaker’s power or powerlessness. I will suggest, in addition, that these implicated statements on power or powerlessness also serve as discursive expressions of marked affect and speaker identity, born out of the linguistic and broader social inequity within which the speaker functions, and effective, therefore, in laying bare an undemocratic and oppressive social order. The findings of this study are based on a close assessment of dialogue from Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty Four”.

The paper examines two basic modes of text building, first proposed by Sinclair (1994). It argues that these text-building means are not just different, but are, rather, operational opposites. It suggests that this difference means that ESL learners who first acquire one mode of text building are, by this means, also equipped with the wherewithal to prevent implementation of the other. The result is an emergent systemic discourse-level difference from target norms in the learners' use of the later-acquired means of text building. This is evidenced in an assessment of a sample of expository essays by fairly advanced learners of English, whose first language is Cantonese. The data assessment also shows that the nontarget-like system is not replaced by a more target-like substitute, in spite of sustained opportunity for continued learning of the target norms. Rather, the resulting nontarget-like structure is retained as a permanent feature, contributing to the distinctness of the local variety, because it is well accommodated in natural communication (even in cross-cultural intercourse), for the simple reason that it does not cause miscommunication.

SOV languages are said to have less rigid word order than SVO languages because they allow scrambling. This study attempts to demonstrate that the 'freedom' of SOV languages is also expressed in the weaker functional and formal constraints on preposing in these languages compared to the constraints on preposing in verb-medial languages. A comparison is made of preposing in verb-final Hindi and Kashmiri and verb-medial English. The analytical framework of Prince (1981, 1984) and Ward (1985), in which (1) the referent of the preposed constitutent of English preposing marks a salient scalar relationship to another discourse entity, itself already evoked or saliently inferable from the discourse, and (2) the preposing is 'presuppositional' (cf. Jackendoff 1972) in that it marks an open proposition (OP) as salient in the discourse (cf. Prince 1981), is adopted in the evaluation of the constraints on Kashmiri and Hindi preposing and in the determination of their differences from English preposing. The study demonstrates that while preposing in the verb-final languages is more functionally constrained than fronting by scrambling, in that it marks an aspectual relationship to the preceding discourse and fronting by scrambling is not constrained to do this, it is less functionally constrained than preposing in verb-medial English. The OP of English preposing must be salient given. Hindi and Kashmiri preposing, on the other hand, are felicitous when the OP is shared knowledge given (cf. Prince 1981).

The paper shows that two key principles of communication (the Shared Knowledge Principle and the Economy Principle), which monitor the framing of all well–formed referring expressions, are manifest in a specialized mode in the framing of focal specific indefinite referring expressions. It is suggested that the special features associated with this type of reference pose a challenge for a group of advanced learners whose L1 is Cantonese. The strategies that these learners adopt in framing this category of indefinite referring expressions are examined and compared to those customarily used by educated native speakers. Pedagogical implications are explored.

The complexities inherent to the acquisition of temporal reference have not been associated with the first formal means of representing time in L2 acquisition of temporal reference, namely temporal adverbials. But this study of the use of ‘then’/‘after that’ by Vietnamese and Chinese learners of ESL suggests that this temporal adverb poses as much of a learning challenge as morphological means of temporal reference. A distinct form to function mapping is evident in this learner's use of ‘then’/‘after that’, just as it is in interlanguage morphological marking of tense and aspect. The same asymmetry in the learning process is evident, with target-like form being acquired at a point at which the corresponding function is still not completely target-like. ‘Then’/‘after that’ marks chronological order for salient narrative events. This paper shows that this learner's usage is monitored by a looser notion of salience, which emerges from the transference of a salience-marking principle from a tense-free L1. It is suggested that since the tenseless L1 is clearly impacting not just the acquisition of English tense-aspect morphology, but rather the entire system of temporal reference, the teacher should not assume shared intuitions on the felicitous use of ‘so simple a word’ as then. Felicitous target usage of ‘then’/‘after that’ should be introduced as a subset of what the learner assumes to be acceptable. In this, negative evidence can be used to illustrate the more highly constrained nature of target usage.

Examines an unrecognized set of conventions that govern the representation of the passage of time in storytelling. Rhetorical conventions in storytelling that are followed to ensure that a narrator generates a story; Factors that affect temporal progression in narrative; Constraints on both the sentential and discourse means of temporal modulation.

Recent research on the acquisition of past tense in L2 has suggested that there is a common developmental process for learners of disparate language backgrounds. This universalist hypothesis claims that verbs which are lexicosemantically more event-like are marked for tense first, followed in distinct stages by the marking of increasingly less event-like verbs. In this study the past tense marking of Chinese learners of ESL in Hong Kong was examined in 120 narratives by students at three learning levels: Form 3 (age 12), Form 6 (age 15) and the second year of university (age 20). An initial quantitative assessment of the data revealed that the above-described developmental pattern does not properly describe the past tense acquisition of ESL learners whose L1 is Cantonese. The data were re-examined using a less traditional, qualitative mode of data analysis, which 1) gave significance to the individual learner’s performance and 2) acknowledged the discourse context in which the past tense marking was used, and the speaker intent it served to fulfil. It was then found that across all three proficiency levels some learners use the past tense to mark only foregrounded (that is, informationally salient) situations. Other learners were found to use the past tense on all verbs, in conformity to the target language grammar. It was found that the only change, as these ESL learners advance in their academic career, is a gradual increase in the number of students who use target-like marking. The idiosyncrasy of this pattern of acquisition is interpreted as resulting from the transfer from these learners’ tense-free L1 of a feature of its temporal system. Two implications for L2 research and pedagogy are noted. It is suggested that the potential role of L1 in L2 acquisition must be properly acknowledged. It is also suggested that accurate assessment of learners’ syntax is achieved via a qualitative analysis of the individual’s performance, which recognises the communicative function the syntax serves in the discourse context in which it occurs.

Two samples of college student writing, paragraphs from freshman compositions, are analyzed for presence or absence of two characteristics of literate prose, decontextualization and autonomy. Writing is decontextualized and autonomous when whatever is needed for its comprehension is not dependent on context or verbal cues, as is often the case with speech. It is argued that the writer's failure to decontextualize is, more specifically, due to violations of the constraints of the organization of given-new information, but that in order to understand this, a new conception of this organiztion is needed. Two additional discourse organizing principles are identified: (1) all new information must be to some extent given, and the more given information is the more felicitous information; and (2) all discourse constituents are not constrained by equally stringent givenness conditions. Examples are offered and discussed, and these new principles are applied to the texts in question.

The paper examines two basic modes of text building, first proposed by Sinclair (1994). It argues that these text-building means are not just different, but are, rather, operational opposites. It suggests that this difference means that ESL learners who first acquire one mode of text building are, by this means, also equipped with the wherewithal to prevent implementation of the other. The result is an emergent systemic discourse-level difference from target norms in the learners' use of the later-acquired means of text building. This is evidenced in an assessment of a sample of expository essays by fairly advanced learners of English, whose first language is Cantonese. The data assessment also shows that the nontarget-like system is not replaced by a more target-like substitute, in spite of sustained opportunity for continued learning of the target norms. Rather, the resulting nontarget-like structure is retained as a permanent feature, contributing to the distinctness of the local variety, because it is well accommodated in natural communication (even in cross-cultural intercourse), for the simple reason that it does not cause miscommunication.

Recent study has proposed that there is a central dichotomy in the modes of text incrementaion in written discourse (cf. Winter, Hoey, Coulthard, Sinclair, Tadros, amongst others). This core distinction is best described by Sinclair (1994) when he distinguishes between two types of in-discourse sentences, here referred to as the Encapsulating and the Prospected sentences. The encapsulating sentence (1b/2b), as Sinclair puts it, retains the ideational of the preceding text, so that at the time of its appearance, it is in itself the whole text. That is, each incrementation by means of the encapsulating sentence must evoke the preceding text as its 'encapsulation' (bracketed component in 2b) The prospected sentence, on the other hand, realizes a prediction made by its preceding sentence (3b). 1a. I was on sentry duty. 1b. I saw the enemy approaching 2a. I was on sentry duty. 2b. (While I was on sentry duty) I saw the enemy. 3a. I have only one reason for doing this. 3b. I need the money. In this paper, I will suggest that the modes of text incrementation effected by means of these sentences are not just different, but in fact diametrically opposed to each other. This operational contrast in the modes of their implementation means that by learning to effect incrementation by the earlier acquired prospected sentence, the language learner has also, unwittingly, put into place the wherewithal to prevent implementation of incrementation by the encapsulating sentence. Hence, the learning challenge posed by incrementation by the encapsulating sentence. In the first section of the paper, I will demonstrate how the ability to effect evocation of the preceding text as encapsulation is a defining constraint on incrementation by the encapsulating sentence, and represent the textuality that results from the recursive use of such incrementations in text construction. In the second section of the paper, I will show that the evocation-of-the-preceding-text constraint directly impacts two key requisite competencies in text incrementation, namely, 1) effective fragmentation of the ideational whole, and 2) effective textualization of each resulting information unit. Message presentation calls for effective fragmentation of the nonlinear ideational whole into a linear succession of constituent units. In incrementation by the encapsulating sentence, proper fragmentation of the ideational whole must be into units that can effect evocation of the preceding text as encapsulation. Likewise proper textualization of these individual units is also constrained to effect evocation of the preceding text. In the last section of the paper, I will examine representative samples of ESL writing, from a total collection of 35 essays written by high-intermediate learners whose L1 is Cantonese, to suggest that they have problems with effective fragmentation and effective textualization in building text by means of incrementation by the encapsulating sentence. I will argue that this is because their fragmentation and textualization strategies are equipped to facilitate the earlier acquired incrementation by the prospected sentence, which pointedly disallows evocation of the preceding text.

This paper uses a schemata-theoretic conception of reading in an assessment of ESL reader recall of unstated levels of meaning in narrative prose. Schemata theory suggests that the skilled reader selects one of a finite number of text schemata to use in the decoding, retention and recall of a particular text, and it has been demonstrated that better knowledge of the schematic structure makes possible better recall. Here, reader recall of two types of unstated meaning in narrative prose is assessed for a group of advanced learners of ESL, who use Chinese as L1. Evidence is presented of poor recall of unstated meaning, concomitant with a lack of knowledge of the requisite schematic structure. It is therefore suggested that formal instruction on the requisite structure will enhance learner recall of unstated meaning.

This study of the use of "then"/"after that" by Vietnamese English-as-a-Second-Language learners suggests that the temporal adverbial poses a significant learning challenge similar to morphological means of temporal reference. Learner usage is monitored by a looser notion of salience, which emerges from the transference of a salience-marking principle from a tense-free first language.

This study examines the selective marking of past tense in the narrative prose of low intermediate-level Indian learners of English as a second language who use Hindi or Urdu as their first language, in order to seek effective classroom strategies to address this learning challenge. It tests the applicability of the existing explanations of selective marking on the past tense use of this group of learners and, finding these explanations inadequate, identifies a more viable explanation, with its source in the learners’ L1. This knowledge is used to formulate an effective instructional approach for the learners’ proper mastery of the English past tense. In finding explanations for performance data in processes quite extraneous to the basic developmental process that monitors SLA, the study is able to contribute to the formulation of a more comprehensive and holistic understanding of SLA.