A theory of group interaction with a focus on the trajectories of relevant variables as they change over time is developed in this paper. The four major components of the group interaction process (communication, conflict, involvement, and centralization) are presented and conceptually defined, and the nature of their interdependence is discussed.…

The activities involved in coding conversation sequences and the lack of attention given to their systematic validation within the field of speech communication are discussed in this paper. The paper first reviews briefly the assumptions underlying relational coding and the implications of viewing these activities as practical accomplishments. It…

A study was conducted to identify the independent and conjoint influence of attitude similarity and initial interactions on interpersonal attraction to relative strangers. The 124 college students who were participants in the study were informed that they would be working on a project with either an attitudinally similar or dissimilar stranger…

Drawn from a 1978 Speech Communication Association seminar, this collection of papers and other materials explores the subject of argumentation as epistemology. The first paper reviews several critiques of traditional argumentation theories and offers directions for new theories, and the remaining eight papers offer responses to the ideas and…

Eighteen conversations between patients and nurses or physicians were videotaped to examine patterns that the interactants followed to maintain dominant or recessive roles. Physicians/nurses were viewed as the dominant interactants because of their greater control in the hospital setting whereas patients were viewed as the recessive interactants…

Speech communicators need to return to applied research, developing theoretical statements about how groups might work better and testing the validity of those statements. Among the tasks that group communication researchers might take up are determining the range of applicability of generalizations concerning different kinds of groups, studying…

In an attempt to better understand the quality of interprofessional relationships, research used a confirmation/disconfirmation framework to analyze communication in nurse-physician dyads. Results indicated that nurses and physicians were primarily confirming in their interaction. (SRT)

Analyzes excerpts from eighteen of Robert M. Krauss's dialog transcripts in order to characterize the sequential and structural relations between naming and describing. Specifically, investigates how a referential description is shortened into a name through use, and what parts of antecedent descriptive phrases are selected to form the consequent…

In order to investigate speech accommodation--the way in which communicators influence each other's speaking patterns and rhythms--a study examined its occurrence, as well as the extent of a conversational partner's influence, and the influence of interpersonal uncertainty and differences in arousal level upon that accommodation process.…

Research was conducted to study the speech in a sales transaction in a retail store under natural conditions. Fourteen sales transactions in a lighting fixture store were tape recorded, with the customer's knowledge, over a period of four days. Each talk was divided into three segments--speech preparatory, speech central, and speech final--and…

This paper presents a new mathematical approach, fuzzy mathematics, for defining, classifying, and analyzing concepts within communications. Fuzzy mathematics is based on the premise that real world phenomena contain characteristics that overlap any artifically created category system or classification rules. Therefore, set membership is…

Suggests that imagined interactions serve several functions including rehearsal for anticipated encounters. Indicates that imagined interactions tend to occur before real interactions, are dominated by the self, and are equally pleasant and unpleasant. (JK)

Presents a conceptual and operational definition of one cognitive dimension of communicative competence--interaction involvement--based on Goffman's model of face-to-face society. Reports two studies to support the validity of the definition. Outlines the implications for future research on communicative competence as well as instructional…

To identify conditions that make a conversational interaction constructive--in the sense that the participants can find the way toward the success of what they wanted to accomplish--two situations were examined. In one, a professional researcher explained her data to a statistician. In the other, three groups of two people cooperated with each…

Effects of sex of speaker and sex of dyad partner on selected linguistic variables were examined in four-minute segments of 20 conversations between previously unacquainted college students. Five male dyads, five female dyads, and ten mixed dyads were studied. Three significant interaction effects were found. Males and females produced about the…