In observing 51 decisions made in a school district over the period of a year concerning the placement of elementary students in special education, the author noted that most decisions seemed to be presented and accepted rather than debated. To discover why, he analyzes one meeting and placement decision of the district's eligibility and placement…

Intended for use by managers, consultants, and teachers of courses in organization behavior, organizational communication, and interviewing, this literature review brings together a great deal of what has been written concerning appraisal interviews. Based on the review, the paper offers 13 guidelines for preparing and conducting appraisal…

This review of the literature on self-speech, a subset of a communicative speech (speech not intended for nor effectively adapted for communication with others), focuses on the concept of self-control through language. The theories of six major researchers in the area of self-speech--J. Piaget, L. Vygotsky, A. Luria, H. Reese, J. Flavell, and L.…

Part of a larger investigation of the rhetorical character of the presidencies of Harry Truman through Jimmy Carter, this report concentrates on the presidents' linguistic styles and their semantic choices. The first half of the report discusses the background of the study and the development of a computerized language analysis…

This index to journals in communication studies published through 1979 is divided into three sections. The first section lists the major articles appearing in 14 journals: (1) "The Quarterly Journal of Speech," (2) "Communication Monographs," (3) "Communication Education," (4) "Southern Speech Communication…

Developmental kinesics is the acquisition of nonverbal conversational behavior by the child. Semiotics is the study of what behavior means. Together they express the relationship of content and expression. Physiologically, verbal language and paralanguage represent the vocal-auditory mode, while kinesics represents the gestural-visual mode.…

If art, when defined by existential and phenomenological boundaries, promotes self-understanding, then the verbal arts in particular offer fully developed hypothetical analogues of humans in action. The need to find some measure of self-knowledge through art does not diminish with age, but the self-understanding promoted by the portrayal of the…

Despite the fact that group work in speech communication classes is assigned to aid students in learning to work productively in groups, there are many people who avoid it and who express a sincere dislike for any group activity in the academic setting. This negative initial reaction toward group work was studied in order to compile a taxonomy of…

Two career-oriented communication programs, developed specifically for engineering and industrial administration majors, are designed to integrate communication theory with skill development, organizational theory, and practical job experience. One of these, the industrial administration program, includes courses in written and oral communication,…

Although alleged sexist implications surrounding the generic use of the term "man" have led many to advocate the elimination of the term from usage, it cannot be concluded that the use of the term as generic is always sexist. A review of the studies dealing with the use of the term shows that it has not been empirically established that the word…

E. Husserl's concept of intentionality provides a conceptual perspective of interpersonal communication that suggests a notion of face-to-face communication called "interaction involvement." Structured along dimensions of awareness and responsiveness, interaction involvement explains interpersonal communication as a transactional relationship…

A model of conversational distance violations that claims that these violations mediate communication outcomes such as source credibility, source attraction, and learning was examined in a study involving 136 undergraduate students. The students were tested in small group settings using eight confederates, four rated highly and four lowly in…

To ensure that all of the subskills undergirding pupils' speaking are identified, taught, and reinforced, the School District of Philadelphia prepared hierarchical listings of skills as exemplified in specific student behaviors. The structured sequence of oral language behaviors are stated operationally and are identified at 14 levels in terms of…

Noting that an increasing number of rape victims who seek alternatives to police procedures do so because of the insensitive behavior of the investigating police officer, this paper provides a model of interpersonal communication skills that will enable police officers to better relate to and support the victims of rape. The areas covered in the…

Noting that a review of communication competence literature focusing on instructional practice reveals an absence of attempts to apply this research to instruction in higher education, this paper provides a synthesis of the research and discusses its implications for instructional goals and practices in higher education. It presents a review of…