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This study investigates developmental changes in grammatical subjects in the English writing of Japanese learners, focusing on subject position as an index of syntactic growth. Previous L2 assessment research has emphasized clausal subordination and global complexity indices; noun phrase complexity has attracted growing attention, but the subject position itself has rarely been isolated as a unit of analysis. Drawing on a longitudinal corpus of 26,399 texts written by 1,086 Japanese high school students over three years, subjects were automatically extracted and annotated using SubjEx, a dependency-parsing system developed for this purpose (accuracy: 93.5%). Mean subject length increased steadily across grades and CEFR proficiency bands, with clearer differentiation from B1 onward; a mixed-effects model with a random slope further indicates increasing divergence in learners’ growth trajectories. Subjects shifted from pronoun-dominant forms toward more complex noun phrases, with greater use of adjectival modification, possessives, compound nouns, and prepositional phrases, while lexical analyses showed a decline in first-person subjects and a rise in informationally dense nominal patterns. Subject position thus emerges as a sensitive indicator of L2 writing development, reflecting a shift from personal expression toward condensed informational packaging, with implications for complexity research and proficiency assessment.

Although previous research has explored how L2 writers allocate their time and how time limits influence writing scores, many of these studies focus solely on final texts, providing only a partial understanding of the writing process. A more comprehensive investigation is essential for enhancing the construct validity of writing assessments. Drawing on empirical research on timed writing and on theoretical models of the writing process, this study explores how time constraints affect L2 learners' written texts and fluency behaviors. A total of 123 participants (60 high-intermediate and 63 advanced EFL learners) completed an argumentative writing task with keystroke logging software under either a 30-minute or 60-minute condition, and stimulated recalls were conducted with a subset. The texts were analyzed for syntactic and lexical complexity, fluency, and overall quality. Results indicate that time constraints did not significantly affect linguistic complexity or writing quality, although fluency behaviors differed across conditions. Time constraints thus affected learners' writing processes more than the linguistic quality of their texts. The core implication for L2 writing assessment is that, for test takers experienced with timed writing, shortening the time allotted to an argumentative task changes composing processes without compromising the product-based scores on which assessment decisions rest.

Previous studies on L2 phrase complexity predominantly focused on noun phrases, while the verb phrase complexity are few and mostly simple verb phrase structures, they have limited expressive capacity. Complex verb phrase structures (e.g., n-grams, VACs) also have limitations. The present study proposes a set of 41 Chinese complex verb phrase structures and are meaningful. A total of 246 verb phrase complexity measures are calculated from the dimensions of account, frequency, diversity, and density. The ability of these measures to predict writing quality is compared with that of 10 large-grained syntactic complexity measures. The results show that large-grained measures (Average sentence length) and verb phrase complexity measures (two verb-object structures and three adverbial-head structures) can respectively explain 14.4% and 41.9% of variance in writing scores. Our results illustrate the importance of Chinese complex verb phrase structures in assessing L2 writing quality.

As automated writing evaluation (AWE) systems proliferate, it is important to assess them for the extent to which they serve an authentic formative assessment purpose. We developed eRevise as an AWE system to engage upper elementary students in text-based writing, receive automated feedback, and revise their essay based on that feedback. In past work, we presented a validity argument for a response-to-text formative assessment. Here, we replicate evidence for the mediational processes we identified with a second response-to-text formative assessment. Beyond replication, we expand the validity argument in several ways: We examine multiple writing outcomes to understand whether the relationships in the data generalize. We also explore patterns of relationships to better understand which students are most likely to benefit from eRevise . Furthermore, we expand the investigation from feature score improvement alone to also consider students’ conceptual development over time. Our findings provide further evidence for sociocultural mechanisms supporting students’ conceptual development of evidence use in writing. We discuss the implications of our findings for future design of eRevise and AWE systems, in general. We also discuss the need for a recursive process where our findings also contribute to refined theory development and design of future AWE systems. (1). Formative Assessment; (2) Argumentative Writing; (3) Adaptive Expertise; (4) Conceptual Change; (5) Validity Argument.

This study investigates how English as a foreign language (EFL) student reviewers engage in open-ended, dialogic interactions with generative artificial intelligence (AI) during the feedback generation process in peer assessment within EFL writing classrooms. It examines the impact of these interactions on feedback quality perceived by recipients, emotional responses (task enjoyment and anxiety), and feedback literacy. A quasi-experimental design was employed with 60 Chinese undergraduate students, divided into an experimental group (EG) that used generative AI (Doubao) for support and a control group (CG) that did not. Over three intervention cycles, data from chat histories, feedback quality ratings by recipients, and pre/post questionnaires on emotions and feedback literacy were analyzed. The results indicated that EG students primarily employed AI for linguistic refinement of their comments, with limited use for enhancing the content or structure. Nevertheless, AI support led to significant, progressive improvements in the perceived quality of feedback, particularly in affect, description, justification, and constructiveness. Furthermore, EG students reported significantly higher task enjoyment and lower anxiety compared to the CG. The intervention also positively enhanced all dimensions of feedback literacy: knowledge and abilities, willingness to participate, cooperative learning, and appreciation of peer feedback. The findings suggest that generative AI can serve as a powerful scaffold, reducing the emotional and cognitive burdens of peer assessment while fostering a more supportive and effective feedback environment. This study underscores the value of integrating AI into peer feedback practices to develop students’ feedback literacy and improve the overall quality of peer learning experiences.

Feedback agency is a key concept in enhancing student writing performance. While growing attention has been paid to student feedback agency, existing research remains largely theoretical and qualitative. As a result, there is a lack of psychometrically supported instruments to measure this construct. To address this gap, the present two-phase study aimed to develop and evaluate a Student Feedback Agency Scale (SFAS), drawing on social cognitive theory. In the development stage, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was conducted on a sample of 235 Chinese international postgraduate students. The results yielded a 23-item SFAS comprising six components: Action Taking, Goal Setting, Processing, Generating, Self-efficacy, and Seeking. Using an independent sample of 349 participants from the same population, Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was conducted in the evaluation stage. The results supported a good model fit (RMSEA = .055, IFI = .923, TLI = .908, and CFI = .922). Multi-group CFAs further confirmed the structural invariance across gender, academic level, and discipline. Overall, the findings provide psychometric evidence to support the interpretation and use of the SFAS scores to measure student agency in writing feedback processes. Based on these results, the factor structure and subscales of the SFAS are discussed, and implications are outlined.

Discussions of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) focus on describing AI as either a tool or a collaborator. Such discussions do not fully grasp GenAI's transformative impact. This article proposes a model of cyborg learning that outlines the skills necessary for using GenAI effectively: background knowledge, critical evaluation of AI output, and rhetorical integration of AI output. Presenting multiple use cases from the literature in technical and professional communication and the author's own experience, the article illustrates how to write as a cyborg.

This article revisits Richard Weaver’s concept of spaciousness as a rhetorical effect and repositions it within contemporary visual rhetoric, particularly data visualizations. Although Weaver’s account of spaciousness is rooted in a political ideology that presumes shared cultural values, the concept offers a useful lens for understanding how style operates in visual communication. Drawing on the classical Ciceronian styles, this article argues that spaciousness functions as a visual analogue of the grand style, emphasizing abstraction rather than detail. Analyses of sparklines, cartographic maps, network visualizations, and metaphor-based displays show how plain style prioritizes instruction and transparency, grand style cultivates openness and shared meaning, and middle style modulates between visual scales through perceptual or interactive zooming. The article demonstrates how stylistic spaciousness in data visualization reinforces cultural assumptions about connectivity, complexity, and knowledge, offering a rhetorically grounded approach to studying visual style.

This experiment tested the impacts of demographic congruence between synthetic humanlike spokesperson avatars and learners. Among 437 U.S. working adults, congruence did not affect knowledge transfer, and effects on perceived effectiveness and belonging were confined to one subgroup: Heterosexual White men rated incongruent avatars as more effective yet reported lower belonging with avatars of the same race but different gender. No other subgroup showed significant effects. Behavioral avatar choices mirrored this pattern. These findings identify a precise intersectional boundary condition, suggesting that effectiveness ratings alone may mask inclusion gaps. Implications for corporate training and business communication pedagogy are discussed.

In Unorganized Women, Jane Greer compellingly argues that low-wage, white women workers deployed activist, repetitious rhetorical labor at the turn of the nineteenth century to shape public percept...

This article contributes to conversations among feminist rhetoricians about the rhetoricity of work by investigating the affordances of “career” as a chronotope that both disrupts and reinforces sexist and racist hierarchies. A case study, this article focuses on a scrapbook assembled by Helen Jacobson Richardson, one of the first stewardesses hired by Northwest Airlines in 1939. Like most early stewardesses, Richardson’s employment ended when she married in 1942. This essay argues Richardson’s uptake of the career chronotope invested her work life with greater dignity and contravened assumptions about the inconsequential nature of women’s workforce participation in the mid-twentieth century.

This article historicizes the emergence of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as an Islamic counterpublic in the U.S. public sphere prior to 9/11. The study analyzes how CAIR functioned as an Islamic counterpublic to contest entrenched Islamophobic rhetorics that positioned Muslims as collective threats to U.S. public safety. It highlights how CAIR performed counterpublic rhetorical moves by using oppositional interpretations to construct Muslim ethos and moral identities; coalitional rhetoric to highlight Muslims’ civic engagement; and world-making to advance new ways of seeing Muslims. The study provides a critical history to CAIR’s contemporary advocacy, contributing to scholarship on Islamic/Muslim counterpublicity.

Technical editing research has examined the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) tools, yet empirical studies on their effectiveness remain limited. This quasi-experimental study investigates whether an AI-assisted tool improves copyediting performance and explores editor perceptions. The study compared 33 students’ editing performance with and without AI assistance. The results showed that an AI tool provided selective benefits, failing to raise overall correction rates but improving detection of AI-flagged errors. Perceptions varied by skill level, with stronger editors finding AI to be more distracting than helpful. The authors consider the teaching implications of this study and suggest that future research should test the effectiveness of various AI tools across different technical content types.

This case study examines how technical communication students used generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) in user-experience (UX) design via Figma. Over a semester, they engaged with Figma Jambot, AI plug-ins, and other GenAI tools. Reporting on the findings from students’ individual and team reflections, the authors explore how students used AI-assistance in UX work. Using activity theory's knotworking, the authors study how students articulate GenAI as object, tool, genre, text, and person. In functioning as a boundary object, AI helped to coordinate team workflows and translate design ideas. Then students employed rework strategies to refine designs. Finally, the authors reflect on implications for AI-assisted UX design as a cocreative process.

This paper proposes an extension of Inference Anchoring Theory (IAT) that incorporates speaker-centered pragmatic phenomena: arguer identity, phatic speech acts, and emotive speech acts into the analysis of natural-language argumentation. While recent work has shown how ethos can be operationalized within IAT, the theory has not yet accounted for how pathos and phatic functions shape the dialogical conditions under which argumentative acts become felicitous. We argue that the felicity of phatic-maintaining, emotion-appealing, and emotion-expressing acts depends on the speaker’s perceived authorization, and that this authorization is conditioned by the identity projected through personality-based dispositions. We formalize these acts as additional illocutionary types within IAT and model how their acceptance or rejection influences the authorization of a subsequent act of arguing. A qualitative case study of the highest- and lowest-rated speakers in a competitive debate illustrates how differences in personality correspond to distinct patterns of phatic and emotive behavior, resulting in different evaluations of Perceived Argument Strength. The proposed extension provides a framework for analyzing how identity-sensitive authorization dynamics operate in dialogue and offers a foundation for future corpus-based and experimental research on the role of the arguer in argumentation.

The purpose of this literature synthesis was to identify AI literacy skills, specifically prompt engineering skills, that are applicable to the business communication classroom. By breaking down disciplinary literature silos, six AI competencies, which are extensions of skills already taught in the business communication classroom, were identified. The input competencies involve training students to (1) provide AI with detailed context, (2) create opportunities for clarification of instructions, and (3) think of the creation of communication material as an iterative process. Competencies for working with the AI-created material include training students to (4) evaluate the AI-generated content for accuracy, (5) assess bias, as well as (6) revise output for voice. Each skill extends existing business communication competencies. As such, this paper provides a roadmap for integrating AI literacy into business communication as an extension of existing curriculum rather than an addition of new content.

I contracted Lyme disease when I was thirteen years old. I struggled with vague symptoms for nine months (maybe my busy parents assumed my fatigue and headaches were normal complaints for a teenage...

The release of ChatGPT in 2022 introduced both transformative opportunities and notable challenges for writing instruction and heightened instructors’ concerns about its impact on teaching and student learning. To explore how GenAI may enhance business communication in the age of AI while mitigating its negative effects on writing instruction, this Feature on Teaching article explains how instructors can proactively design custom AI tools to shift use from content generation to learning support, and offers a practical approach to adapting to an evolving, AI-driven context while exploring strategies to enhance student engagement and learning outcomes.

This study investigates how perceived credibility can serve as self-feedback to enhance speaker credibility. Using a critical literacy-informed self-assessment tool, 30 business undergraduates in an advanced business communication course observed the first minute of their recorded presentation at 5-s intervals for 5 non-verbal cues. Coded findings revealed two key gender differences in positioning for speaker credibility: females used fewer body movements, more facial expressiveness and eye contact while males demonstrated greater fluency and more confident hand gestures. These findings may allow instructors and learners to mitigate gender-based differences in the classroom to enhance oral presentation competence critical for workplace success.

Abstract A significant proportion of human reasoning is systematically biased, a fact that sits uneasily with argumentation theory’s methodological commitment to the principle of charity. Traditionally, the principle requires arguments to be reconstructed as plausibly and rationally as possible, which conflicts with the definition of cognitive biases as irrational. The aim of this paper is to show that we can and should integrate cognitive biases into argument reconstruction. Firstly, we demonstrate both the ubiquity and societal consequences of biased reasoning. We then articulate a trilemma for argument analysis: (i) exclude biased reasoning from reconstruction, (ii) redefine it as rational, or (iii) abandon the principle of charity. We argue that this trilemma can be resolved by adopting a nuanced understanding of charity that puts sufficient emphasis on the descriptive standard of accuracy alongside the normative standard of plausibility. By properly pursuing these dual aims, we can account for instances of biased reasoning in argument analysis in terms of the underlying mental states and processes. By taking the effect of the in-group bias in climate skepticism as an instructive example, we present one way of integrating cognitive biases into argument analysis by reconstructing instances of biased reasoning as arguments. The aim of such reconstructions is not to vindicate biased reasoning as epistemically sound, after all, but rather to make its justificatory structure transparent and discussable.

Organizational communication patterns were utilized to predict employee creativity and innovation, with employee engagement examined as a potential mediator. Data were collected from participants employed across a variety of industries and organizations, using a census-matched, nationally representative sample ( N  = 378). As hypothesized, the conversation and positive conformity orientations positively predicted both creativity and innovation. Although negative conformity negatively correlated with creativity and innovation, it positively predicted employee innovation in the path analysis. Employee engagement served as a full mediator for positive conformity and a partial mediator for the conversation orientation with both creativity and innovation.