Taking a dialogic approach, this edited book engages in analysis and description of dialogic discourse in a number of different educational contexts, from early childhood to tertiary, with an international team of contributors from Australia, Finland, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. The chapters focus mostly on dialogic face-to-face discourse,…

Reports the development of a Verbal Systems Analysis procedure for investigating significant form in verbal communications through a process which operationalizes two of the central concepts of form in Kenneth Burke's theory of symbolic action. (MH)

Uses conversational analysis to investigate how people accomplish a specific enactment of their everyday lives. (MH)

Examines the functional relationship of source and message by testing the hypothesis that the impact of a message is a function of the strength of the message multiplied by the strength of the source. (MH)

Constructs a foundation for the study of everyday talk from a communication perspective. (MH)

Focuses on an analysis of discourse in natural settings including speeches and formal presentations as well as informal meetings and ordinary talk. (MH)

Argues that movements are a kind of ritual conflict whose most distinguishing form is confrontation. (MH)

Findings indicate that lapses in conversation occur when one of the participants uses responses which fail to advance the topic. Analysis of the postlapse data indicates that subsequent to a lapse, the most probable strategy is for one of the participants to pose a question which the partner is obligated to answer. (PD)

Employs interaction analysis to examine communicative behaviors displayed by management versus labor negotiators at various phases of the collective bargaining process. Finds that administration and teacher negotiators were surprisingly similar in communicative bargaining behaviors exhibited but that communication strategies were different at the…

Investigates the effects of disclosure as perceived by the recipient with specific attention given to the recipient's level of self-esteem. (MH)

Discusses assignments in discourse analysis and students' recurring methodological errors. (PD)

To examine the effects of the contextual variables of relationship intimacy and time on communication satisfaction, a study was undertaken involving 252 college freshmen. The subjects participated in one of two treatments. In the first, they were randomly paired and participated in social conversation for 15 minutes. Following the conversation,…

Discusses a study designed to measure the effects of message threat level, message quality, and initial receiver attitude on attitude change and evaluations of source credibility. (MH)

Argues that studies on how and why humans talk, however precise the methodology, do not have the quality of science. Contends that these studies contain the essence of criticism and should be regarded as such. (PD)