These proceedings contain the following papers: "Corporate Conduct: The Importance of Proper Etiquette and Communication" (Glenna A. Dod and Susan L. Fay); "Establishing a System for Technical Editing" (Marlene A. Hobel and Kathy L. Urbach); "Office Technology in Business Communication Textbooks: Current Status, Future Recommendations" (Richard M.…

Discovering pleasure in words should begin at a young age. But the discovery can continue among college students if oral communication courses offer parallels to the art and music appreciation courses which are part of most collegiate curricula. Some class activities which can enlarge appreciation of oral language are: (1) students may be assigned…

A study of mother-child interaction focused on the contingent responses children make to various mother strategies to elicit language and the mothers' frequency of using that tactic. The subjects were six normal and four retarded children, matched for general language skills, and their mothers. Mother-child interactions videotaped at home were…

Current interest and controversy about the use of microcomputers with young children led to a study of 13 3- to 5-year-old girls and boys enrolled at the De Anza College Child Development Center in Cupertino, California. Designed to determine the effectiveness of the computer in enhancing language experiences and development of cooperative play…

As a powerful tool for education, language informs, influences, discloses, and communicates. Research on the use of language has found that it also discriminates. Among the different manifestations of sexism in language are (1) the use of "he" as a generic pronoun; (2) the "generic" use of "man" as an exclusively male referent; (3) the use of "you…

A comparative study was conducted in two factories in the Montreal area which were in the process of changing the official language within the factory from English to French. The objective of the research was twofold: (1) to analyze the language use and behavior of the employees; and (2) to develop research instruments appropriate for evaluating…

Documented sex differences in speech and their significance are considered. The research literature on sex-differentiated speech reveals the influence of sex-role stereotypes and assumptions about the relation of speech to sex-differentiated socialization. The more substantiated differences form three clusters: (1) the production of esteemed…

A program for improving documentation at the systems division at Allen-Bradley is sketched in this paper. Following introductory material about starting the program, the paper outlines the two main projects that were involved: (1) a management study of the Allen-Bradley manual writing process, which addressed problems with the content and…

Many classics in children's literature have metaphoric structures that enhance the structure of the plot. Metaphor is not an added frill to creative writing, nor is it the private province of poets. It is a necessary part of everyday language. One viewpoint on metaphor can be found in studies on child language acquisition. Children do use…

The research of W. O'Barr and B. K. Atkins found that the use of "women's language" features--the use of tag questions, interrogative intonation, sex-specific vocabulary, hedges and fillers, empty adjectives, and hypercorrect grammar; the inability to tell jokes; and the tendency to use fewer expletives than men--was associated more with…

Results of a study documenting the Mexican American's unique Spanish dialectal expressions used in the barrios of San Antonio, Texas, and its surrounding areas are presented. The expressions included are those which were not recorded in the "Diccionario de la Real Academia Espanola" (19th Edition) or which were recorded therein but with…

Twenty-two interviews were conducted with the owner, managers, employees, suppliers, customers, and competitors of an auto dealership employing 91 people in order to examine the oral traditions of that company. The interviews provided data on management styles, dynamics of the managers' interaction, general language usage, paralanguage, favorable…

A study of code-switching in the classroom language use of a group of Ohio third graders used as data over 17 hours of conversation taped in September through December during structured small-group lessons, informal conversations, whole-class lessons, and peer teaching of English to monolingual and Spanish-dominant children. The group included…

The Task-Based Approach (TBA) has gained popularity in the field of language teaching since the last decade of the 20th Century and significant scholars have joined the discussion and increased the amount of analytical studies on the issue. Nevertheless experimental research is poor, and the tendency of some of the scholars is nowadays shifting…

Urges the use of the direct method for the teaching of English as a second language, incorporating community action as the model for language usage. (LG)