Describes a communication curriculum of and for the future, which would be independent, integrated, inclusive, and visionary. Includes the mission statement and goals from one such communication program. (SR)

Explores, through rhetorical criticism, the prismatic character of the Gettysburg Address. Gives attention to the form and constituents of Lincoln's speech and to available topoi that were omitted from it. (SR)

Discusses how Joseph Pulitzer and the multifaceted sensationalism of his newspapers offer essential lessons for teaching a large lecture class in mass communication. (SR)

The common themes expressed in articles in this volume are that children become literate in the context of relationships; literacy is dependent on oral discourse; literacy is a set of social functions, practices, and forms, not a hierarchy of skills based on units of written language; and beginning literacy users benefit from access to social,…

Addresses the public presence of communication study on university campuses. Argues that communication researchers lack a clear vision about the field, which is fractured into subfields intent on internal debates rather than the public responsibility of its scholars. Suggests that communication scholars offer inchoate curricula for communication…

Finds that most students spend 10% or less of their MBA education on communication topics. Argues that, although there has been an increase in communication offerings, MBA programs are remiss in reshaping curricula to conform to the new skills required of business managers and leaders. Offers suggestions for public relations faculty involvement in…

Examines the goals, methods, and effects of four current deliberative civic education programs, with an in-depth analysis of one: the National Issues Forums (NIF). Shows that NIF can bolster participants' political self-efficacy, refine their political judgments, broaden their political conversation networks, and reduce their conversational…

Finds that communication-skills instruction generates (using the Binomial Effect Size Display) a 44% increase in critical-thinking ability. Finds that forensic participation demonstrated the largest positive impact on critical-thinking improvement, but that all communication skills experiences demonstrated significant improvement. (SR)

Reports college students' perceptions of service learning, noting that it helps them learn course content, and heightens their sense of citizenship, with the course-content effect intensified for "repeat" service-learning participants. Shows students evenly split as to whether service activities made them more motivated to attend class and to…

A case study investigated the effectiveness of a new technology to aid people who are deaf or hard of hearing to participate fully in meetings held in the workplace through the use of Computer Assisted Remote Transcription (CART), in which a stenographer transcribes a meeting from a remote location. Results indicated some problems with using the…

This case study investigated whether patterns obtained from elicited speech also hold for conversational data. A longitudinal corpus of spontaneous/natural speech from an adult first-language Spanish learner of second-language Swedish is studied. (Author/VWL)

Based on spontaneous data from 50 German children with specific language impairment (SLI), several aspects of impaired clause structure are explored. Findings are that children with SLI use more finite than nonfinite verb forms. (Author/VWL)

Describes a research study based on the Vygotskian concepts of the zone of proximal development, scaffolding, private speech, and task and activity, as presented by Lantoff and Appel (1994). The research design draws on the work of Donato (1994) and Coughlan and Duff (1994), and applies their ideas to suggest a sociocultural approach to the…

A study evaluated the performance of 12 individuals with mental retardation on a post-perceptual discourse comprehension task. Three text-to-speech systems (DECTalk, MacinTalk, and Real Voice) were used to present stimulus passages. The DECTalk synthetic voice showed a non-significant trend toward superior accuracy scores on the comprehension…

Investigates the cross-linguistic patterns of the overgeneralization of the intransitive/transitive alternations found in children's speech and provides new evidence from findings based on the acquisition of French. The morphosyntatic characterization of such phenomena in English and Hebrew child language is followed by a description of the…