Marsha D. Walton

The metaphorical construction of sexual experience in a speech community of New Zealand university students

Influenced by developments in feminist and discourse theory, the study examined a database of metaphors about sex collected by a New Zealand university student speech community. Using a Lakoff-type analytic approach, the topics and source domains of the metaphors were identified. In addition, the linguistic constructions of the metaphors and their discourse function were also examined. The metaphors tended to capture male experience more convincingly than female experience and reflected male dominance in sexual relations. However, there was no necessary relationship between a metaphorical source domain and its ability to support a discourse of male dominance. The same metaphorical source domain could be used to support or undermine male dominance, depending on its context of use. This research demonstrated that understanding the powerfully generative source domains of metaphors about sex can facilitate an imaginative and strategic use of metaphor that has the potential to undermine dominant meaning systems.

Say It's a Lie or I'll Punch You: Naive Epistemology in Classroom Conflict Episodes

Verbs of knowing and other epistemological expressions were examined in transcripts of spontaneous conflict episodes in K-4th-grade classrooms. In 4,673 utterances there were 833 instances of epistemological expressions, with the proportion increasing with age and highest in teacher utterances. About one third of the childrens epistemological expressions concerned certainty, contrasting knowledge with belief. These utterances were used strategically to regulate discourse, and they functioned differently in the conflict talk of children as compared to teachers. Children used expressions of uncertainty to soften challenges, whereas teachers used the same expressions to make indirect threats and commands. Besides certainty, epistemological expressions concerned accuracy, perception, meaning, veracity, and cognitive processes. Older children were more likely to talk about cognitive processes and veracity, and discussions about truth versus falsehood became more sophisticated in the oldest age group. Findings are discussed in light of what they reveal about the negotiation of meaning in everyday interactions and the development in context of a culturally shared, commonsense epistemology.

Physical stigma and the pregnancy role: Receiving help from strangers

Previous research has demonstrated several similarities in the reaction of others to pregnant and to physically stigmatized individuals. This study recorded helping behavior (assistance in picking up scattered keys) directed toward an apparently pregnant, nonpregnant, or facially disfigured woman in an elevator either alone, with a female companion, or with a male companion. A predicted interaction revealed that significantly more assistance was given to the pregnant woman than to either of the other two only when she was alone or with a female companion; she was helped less than the non-pregnant experimenter when she was accompanied by a male. Differences and similarities in the norms that govern behavior toward pregnant women and the physically stigmatized are discussed in light of their relevance to womens development during the childbearing years. The well-documented negative effect of group size on helping was replicated. Unexpected sex differences were found in rate of helping. Women virtually never helped in this situation—even in all-female groups. These findings are discussed in light of previous work on sex differences in helping.

Ostensible Lies and the Negotiation of Shared Meanings.

Ostensible speech acts are utterances that take the form of an invitation, compliment, request, and so forth but that actually function “off the record” for some other purpose. Ostensible lies are an interesting subset of ostensible speech because they involve the ability of one speaker to (apparently) impose a particular view of reality, that is, to make that view stand in the ongoing interaction. I argue that a primary “off‐record” purpose of these acts and of ostensible speech acts in general is to assert or affirm a status or power difference between speaker and addressee. Communication involves a process in which interlocutors negotiate to establish a set of shared meanings. Ostensible lies are speech acts that flout the rules governing this negotiation process.

“Im Gonna Tell You All About It”: Authorial Voice and Conventional Skills in Writing Assessment and Educational Practice

ABSTRACT Writing assessments have attended to the mechanics of writing, reflecting a value on the teaching of writing conventions. One quality of writing rarely assessed is authorial voice, a personal style that communicates the authors stance toward events reported and the authors relationship to the audience. The authors explore associations among authorial voice, writing mechanics, and academic performance. In the fall and spring of 1 academic year, 115 third- through fifth-grade students wrote personal narratives that were coded for 2 measures of mechanics and 4 measures of authorial voice. Students and teachers completed measures of academic performance. Mechanics, but not voice, predicted academic performance. The authors suggest that mechanics-focused state standards discourage authorial voice, and they propose attention to voice as a springboard to develop other writing skills.

Patterns of Conflict Experience That Emerge in Peer Reports and Personal Narratives During Middle Childhood

The present study used a person-centered approach to examine patterns of conflict experience among 198 3rd–6th grade children. Peer reports of aggressive behavior, sociability, victimization, and an assessment of psychological mindedness in narrative accounts of conflict experiences were used. Three patterns were identified using mixture modeling: Managers, Avoiders, and Sustainers. Patterns differed with respect to narrative skills and social adjustment. Findings demonstrate the benefit of examining childrens ability to tell their own stories in combination with peer perceptions of childrens behavior. Discussion focuses on how children may rely on behavioral and narrative skills to develop different ways of responding to peer conflict in context, as well as on the application of findings in school settings.