Discusses the forces responsible for the high level of articulacy in the People's Republic of China, and describes a set of texts for teaching Chinese as a second language compiled by the Peking Language Institute. (CLK)

A study of 150 residents of a small southern Illinois city suggests that there are significant correlations between local daily newspaper content and what people in the community report reading and talking about, but that there are only nonsignificant partial correlations between the newspaper's and the residents' agendas about local news. (GW)

Describes a study comparing regulator behaviors and patterns of middle- and working-class speakers. Findings support the general view that patterns of regulators in conversation are different for groups that seem to differ in verbal communication contents, contexts, and patterns. (JMF)

Examines brainstorming as an aid to creative group problem solving. Presents a history of its practice, a survey of empirical studies, and theoretical explanations for the superiority of individual over group brainstorming. (PD)

A course entitled "Human Communication in Pharmacy Practice," offered at Oregon State University, is team-taught by faculty members from the School of Pharmacy and the Department of Speech Communication. A course description, requirements, and student evaluation are presented, and the syllabus and representative readings are appended.…

Examines some problems in designing a course in oral business communication. Suggests some viable solutions, and provides examples of assignments and a tentative course schedule. (RL)

The National Center for Education Statistics has commissioned a new educational taxonomy, which will include a speech communication category. The omnibus project, guidelines and constraints affecting the classification process, and the activities and decisions that relate particularly to speech communication are discussed. (JMF)

The importance of contextual influences to conversational competence development is emphasized. Included are one or more significant adults whose systematic patterns of feedback teach children rules of conversation while providing guided practice in the use of these rules. The role of expansion is examined as one of the common patterns of feedback…

Suggests activities that integrate the language arts skills of listening, speaking, and writing with the reading program. (MAI)

Average intelligibility scores for a group of 37 hearing-impaired and 2 normally hearing adolescents were determined by 50 normal listeners and were compared with nine acoustically measured speech variables, including measurements of consonant production, vowel production, and prosody. (Author/DLS)

Argues that while spoken language has received a great deal of attention during the past decade, the methods of its examination have received too little. (AA)

Developmental aspects of several temporal parameters in the speech of 2- to 4-year-old English-speaking children were investigated; adults served as a control group. Children seemed to possess timing control systems which are more sophisticated than has previously been suggested. (Author/SW)