The topic of silence and "the Chinese learner" has been extensively studied often in relation to cross-cultural adjustment, intercultural issues, learning styles, language ability and differences of classroom expectations. These studies have often led to recommendations to understand silence and "the Chinese learner" in more…

After a brief introduction to Dementia of the Alzheimer's Type (DAT), its behavioral diagnostic symptom complex and a summary of communicative implications, we present data from two conversations involving participants with and without DAT. We discuss the concept of "order" in conversation, and the central importance of interactional monitoring.…

The author discusses persuasive communication and explores why some speakers are seen as credible sources of information while others are not. She covers several factors related to perceived credibility, including (1) sex, (2) size, (3) age, and (4) social status of the source. Methods of establishing credibility are discussed. (CH)

Discusses some of the current computer network services of interest to scholars, teachers, and students in communication studies. Discusses issues of access and use. (SR)

This paper examines United States Representative Hale Boggs's 1971 speech on the House floor, in which he denounced J. Edgar Hoover and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for wiretapping members of Congress and infiltrating campus student groups. Following an introduction to the objectives of the paper, the first section reviews Boggs's…

Compares the different ways in which Americans and Japanese people shift topics in business conversations. It is suggested that the different uses of topic-shifting strategies reflect a more profound difference in cultural expectations. (Author/GLR)

Introduces DACUM (a process designed to help colleges develop, update, or evaluate a curriculum or training program) and its resulting national database. Describes how DACUM can be used to justify the study of communication in most academic curricula, to guide speech communication curriculum planning and defining of the basic course, and to…

Discusses ways speech communication instructors can use the film "Thelma and Louise" in an upper-division rhetorical criticism class to illustrate three different critical approaches: pentadic, feminist, and ideological criticism. (SR)

Speech plays important and complex roles in self-regulation and is experienced in several distinct forms: as a social-discursive mode of communication and direction (social speech), as vocalizations directed to the self rather than to others (private speech), and as the phenomenologically subjective "interior dialogue" through which the…

Solomon Henry Clark's 1895 address entitled "The New Elocution," focused on the denigration of elocution as an academic discipline, its fall from favor with universities, and the worn, tired, and reductive methods of teaching which he saw around him. Clark's vision--as he stated in his 1915 address and book entitled "Interpretation…

The study of slips of the tongue (which offers glimpses of processes underlying speech) is facilitated by several research techniques which induce slips in the laboratory setting. Several of these techniques and results obtained are discussed. Results often support the hypothesis that verbal slips reveal hidden anxieties. (DH)

This paper unfolds through the eating, speaking mouths of online learners and teachers and theorists as a way of exploring the educative potential of holding in tension the ambiguous virtues of the body and the (no)body in formal and informal electronic learning environments. Online learning research commonly devalues the body and takes the body…

Outlines the national charges of "Goals 2000" and the Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills regarding the expansion of communication instruction requirements. Sees speech communication professionals well positioned to meet these externally generated broad-based goals. (SR)

Describes the use of Spike Lee's film "Jungle Fever" in an introductory communication theory class. Demonstrates how the film can be used to help students understand four metatheoretical perspectives: laws, rules, systems, and critical approaches. Discusses when and how to use the film in class. (SR)

Offers an overview of the history of human communication and communication technology. Notes that, as information technology has changed, perceptions of written communication have also changed. Argues that writing is a remarkably efficient means of storing and transmitting information, which continues to be of fundamental importance. (SR)