Conversational speech is the most socially valid context for evaluating speech intelligibility, but it is not routinely examined. This may be because it is difficult to reliably count the number of words in the unintelligible portions of the sample. In this study four different approaches to dealing with this problem are examined. Each is based on…

Discusses communication between multilingual individuals by means of a language other than their native languages. (Text is in Spanish.) (DS)

This paper explores the origins and correct use in Spanish of "tu,""vos" and "Usted." Corroboration for the points made is sought in ancient and contemporary literature. (Text is in Spanish.) (CK)

This paper examines three aspects of phonological interference observable in the speech of Puerto Rican bilinguals: (1) segmentation patterns, (2) accentual patterns, and (3) pitch patterns. Ten representative speakers, including nine students and one faculty member, were selected to read a story in the original Spanish and in English translation.…

A sociolinguistic, ethnographic analysis of Christian Science oral testimonies is reported in this study. The study is based on the analysis of transcripts of four testimonial meetings of a branch church, interpreted through knowledge of Christian Science official literature, informal interaction with Christian Scientists, and knowledge of other…

The Sequential Analysis of Verbal Interaction (SAVI) categorizes verbal behavior in terms of approach or avoidance of the problem of communication. It reflects both verbal and nonverbal interaction and treats all verbal behavior as problem-solving behavior. Chapter One describes the theoretical assumptions and framework of the system. Chapters Two…

In order to teach reading effectively to students who use a nonstandard dialect, the teacher must accept and understand the systems and patterns of that dialect. He can then help his students avoid the characteristics of their dialect which lead to confusion in communication, promote their accurate decoding of standard English as they learn to…

The concept of language barrier has its derivations in the fields of dialectology, sociology and psychology. In contemporary usage however, the concept has two meanings i.e. regional-cultural barrier and socio-cultural barrier. (Text is in German.) (DS)

Misinformation and ambiguity as features of social communication in Northern Thai villages are examined. The questions of how well Northern Thai villagers understand each others' verbal communications, and how accurate their statements actually are, are considered. (Author/RM)

This study found that there are striking similarities between the pattern of interruptions in male-female interchanges and those observed in the adult-child transactions. (Author)

Various types of translation problems in cross-cultural research are translation of questions or other verbal stimuli, vocabulary equivalence, equivalence in idiom, grammar, syntax, and back-translation. (Author/SB)

The intelligibility of crosslanguage voice communication in American English was studied in situations where the phonemes of that language are uttered by American speakers and identified by speakers of German, French, and Mexican Spanish and in situations where they are uttered by speakers of German, French, and Mexican Spanish and identified by…

Discusses a number of studies related to white attitudes and black images, noting that there appears to be a definite impact on transracial communication--e.g. on the amount of understanding that persons from different racial backgrounds can achieve in a situation of verbal interaction--of the changing image of black Americans. (Author/JM)

A study examined the manner in which conversants and observers of conversants attribute intent to messages in ongoing information-seeking conversations. College students were used to evolve and test three scenarios, in which evasion was more or less likely, and a system of classifying intention in information seeking conversations. Fifty-four…