Becoming a professional worker involves a wide range of cognitive, social, and cultural processes that have received extensive attention over the past decades amongst various disciplines. It is also not external to language use and communication. Novices in any occupation have to learn technical terms and are expected to master specific discourse…

Diversity is valued and promoted in contemporary public discourse, but on the other hand, there is a strong tendency to homogenize differences in society. The tension between diversity and homogeneity is palpable on U.S. college campuses as the number of international students has been ever-increasing. A more nuanced approach is needed to grapple…

Presents a taxonomy of jokes and wit as a useful, descriptive tool. Argues that humor processing may occur in a parallel rather than serial fashion by contrasting a serial-processing, incongruity-resolution model with an alternative dual-processing model. Also presents a taxonomy of the social functions of wit. (JK)

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 12 titles deal with the following topics: (1) the relational nature of humor, (2) pragmatism and transaction, (3) within-channel redundancy versus between-channel redundancy in instructional material and its association with…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 13 titles deal with the following topics: confessional rhetoric in the poetry of Anne Sexton, rhetorical criticism, the Hippocratic oath, messages communicated through team sports as a medium of social interaction, the silent…