Reports the means, standard deviations, and relevant statistics on an examination of the readability of 24 contemporary textbooks that employ a hybrid approach to the basic speech communication course. Discusses some strategies for developing reading skills. (KEH)

Examines the implications of the exercise of academic freedom as well as potential threats to it. Considers administrative problems, reasonableness of standards, grading practices, and relevance of course content as well as scholarship. (KEH)

This study examined the correspondence between spoken English and Australasian Signed English when used simultaneously by four teachers of deaf Australian students. The teachers were more than 90 percent accurate in reproducing on their hands what they were saying but at some cost to the oral aspects of the simultaneous communication. (Author/JDD)

An examination of approaches to analyzing speech reporting, found that the various approaches fall into two broad categories: traditional, emphasizing the syntactic dimension; and discourse pragmatic, emphasizing the interaction of syntactic, pragmatic, and stylistic factors. A model is proposed and applied to learner varieties of English and…

This paper reviews research findings on the structural properties of deaf childrens' gestural communication systems and evaluates those properties in the context of data gained from other approaches to the question of the young child's language-making capacity. (over 100 references) (JL)

Describes the development of a sociolinguistic inquiry method to explain the verbal communication processes operating between tutor and student. Explains the coding of audiotaped tutoring sessions in terms of the interaction moves of initiation, reply, evaluation, marker, and addition. Presents preliminary results and implications for research and…

Addresses important considerations for the implementation of speaking across the curriculum. Highlights important distinctions between speech courses and speaking-across-the-curriculum courses taught by faculty in other disciplines. Argues that the benefits of speaking across the curriculum outweigh the potential harm to the field if concerns are…

This article examines the use of theater in secondary education to highlight social issues and enhance students' lives. Several examples of plays and the subjects approached are briefly discussed. The article concludes with a list of theater companies that can be used as resources. (GLR)

Discusses service learning (learning that combines public service with related academic work) and service learning projects in an undergraduate course on mass communication and society. Finds that it is an effective means of teaching that increases student understanding of complex material. (SR)

Reviews speech-interactive learning activities in selected commercial products: activities for vocabulary development, conversational practice, and pronunciation. Suggests the effectiveness of speech-interactive computer-assisted language learning is determined less by capabilities of the speech recognizer than by (a) design of language-learning…

Compared mother', fathers', and siblings' corrective repetitions to children's errors across different settings. Analyses revealed that mothers and fathers provided more corrective repetitions than did siblings. Results are discussed in terms of current negative evidence research. (Author/VWL)

Presents data that challenge the view that the omission of functional categories by children with specific language impairment is a manifestation of the same immaturity characterizing the grammar of young children without impairment. Data include atypically high omissions or even almost total absence of determiners in the speech productions of a…

Contributes to rhetorical scholarship by exploring the rhetorical implications of presidential travel spectacles. Finds that travel spectacles enable administrations to marginalize verbal eloquence, visually simplify complex political issues, narratively interpret presidential agendas, synoptically reify presidential personae, and construct or…

Responds to an article in this same issue of this journal. Explores whether, in mainstream communication academia, opportunities for scholarly creativity and reflection are sacrificed in order to uphold criteria designed only to measure the goodness of one approach--that of the social scientist. (SR)

Responds to an article in this same issue of this journal. Discusses autoethnography and the roots of this narrative genre; suggests three ways the article connects with the teaching of communication; and notes its legitimacy as scholarly writing and a vision of its pedagogical relevance. (SR)