I am somewhat astonished by Craig's response to Ed Shuster's question about work on the acquisition of writing along the lines of K. Perera in the 1980s. Craig writes: We have a rather astounding lack of research in the area, perhaps because for a few decades or so the prevailing view has been that language is primarily "acquired". ********************************* The work by Perera in the 1980s makes this point, and, if you actually read this work, you will find that she actually cites linguistic structures which are relatively "late" (after the age of 12) in children's writing. I have read nothing by people working in systemic functional linguistics which provides the specificity of "late" acquired structures in the work of Perera. Several years ago Craig reported on this list that he had just heard about Perera's work at an ATEG conference for the first time. I'm surprised that he apparently still has not read any of her work. ************ In the field of second language acquisition, there is an entire subdiscipline called English for Special Purposes that focuses on the discipline specific language. However, I have no special expertise to do the following, and I wonder if anyone on this list does. Certain kinds of structures tend to be valued in certain registers, sometimes without the kind of reflectiveness that would call some of that into question. So we need to think about both sides of this. What can we offer various technical disciplines that would help improve their own discourse and how can we help students make the language adjustments they need to make to do well in those worlds. ************** This is couched in such a high level of generality that is difficult to figure out what Craig thinks we can "offer various technical disciplines that would help improve their own discourse." Perhaps, Craig can give us an example of a "technical discipline" whose discourse needs assistance and the kind of assistance he would offer, so we can get a sense of his program of work. Bob Yates, University of Central Missouri To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/