In a multilateral communication situation, when at least one participant is speaking a language not his own, sociocultural norms must be suspended. The foreign language spoken must here be regarded simply as a particular language variety. Various communication problems and possible solutions are given, with several examples. (IFS/WGA)

Makes a case for dialogic translation, a process in which the translator anticipates the response of the child reader, listens to the reader, and reaches out to the child. This process contrasts with the view that the only way to translate well is to reproduce the original text as faithfully as possible. (NH)

This article summarizes procedures used in translating technical jargon in the field of behavior therapy to plain English. It lists phrases translated from applied behavior analysis to public education, presents acronyms useful in remembering sequences of steps, and describes two tests to help in decision making in behavior analysis applications.…

Like legal language, medical language is a private language, a separate stratum containing some words specially defined for medical purposes, some existing only in the medical vocabulary, and some adding precision or solemnity. These characteristics often cause a breakdown in patient-doctor communication. Analysis of data obtained from prototype…

Examines samples of language usage from the Australian mass media, pointing to the media's influence on student language and to the need for teaching students how to understand media language usage. (RL)

A useful device in revising technical reports is the metaphor of entropy, which refers to the amount of disorder that is present in a system. Applied to communication theory, high entropy would correspond to increased amounts of unfamiliar or useless information in a text. Since entropy in rhetorical systems increases with the unfamiliarity of…

Suggests it is more valid to teach business students when it is and is not appropriate to use "commercialese" (stock phrases commonly used in business letters), than to launch a head-on attack on it. (GT)

All speakers bring to even simple verbal encounters complex presuppositions and expectations that may create discourse interference. A second-language encounter carries a complex and often inexplicable expectation load. Language expresses meaning and intentions, but also carries social import. The value or appropriateness of speaking itself varies…

After describing scenes that reveal a pattern in which whites regard blacks' speech behavior as threatening, aggressive, or hostile, and in which blacks disagree with their interpretation, this paper explores differences between black and white cultural assumptions, values, and conventions of aggressive behavior to account for the different…