Studies conflict-handling behavior of employees within organizations in an inductive investigation aimed at overcoming problems of assuming two dimensions of conflict behavior. Develops a descriptive model of conflict-handling behavior which delineates and defines strategy categories based on actor-salient aspects of specific behavior in specific…

Argues that mediation is extension of the self along paths of social practice, discourse, and technology. Argues that communication should be studied from that perspective, which is more consistent with the everyday experience of communication. Illustrates the theory with an analysis of the empowerment and disempowerment of men and women through…

Investigates the possibility that judicial policymaking is responsive to the situational exigencies created in part through public discourse. Investigates the elite and public perspectives regarding the eugenics controversy in the 1920s to explore the emergent relationship between the public and technical spheres of argument. (SR)

Analyzed conversational narratives spontaneously produced by preschool children. Results indicated that children use three forms of narrative, usually mark new topics with an introductory phrase, and prefer to talk about themselves as engaged in positive events. Notes that children are most likely to address their narratives to adults. (HTH)

Advocates using systems theory and systems models for ethical decision making in public relations. Demonstrates how to apply systems theory (with its ability to delineate a complex process and wed it to a model of organizational decision making) to analyzing the ethical dimensions inherent in the public relations process. (SR)

Examines Edward Miner Gallaudet's speech, "Remarks on the Combined System," to illustrate the power of the rhetorical knowledge thesis to account for paradoxes in Gallaudet's discourse on educating the deaf student. Contends that Gallaudet offered his remarks to preserve his ideas for a later age when they might receive sympathetic…

Argues that on-line linguistic choices are made in a matrix of continuous discourse connection. Investigates hypotheses concerning communicative dynamism. Identifies gestures as reflective of the status of utterances. Interprets correlations of gestures and linguistic material as reflective of an underlying unity. (HB)

Summarizes the results of searches of two databases containing abstracts of doctoral dissertations in technical communication. Analyzes those studies, offers suggestions for future research, lists institutions conducting doctoral research, identifies researchers' methods, and summarizes the topics they examine. (SR)

Examines the link between social skill and dysphoria. Finds three factors that help explain inconsistent results in the literature: conceptualization of social skill, perspective from which social skill is assessed, and situational outcome. Shows that the link between social skill and dysphoria is complex and affected by the three factors. (SR)

Advances two processes describing the relationship between message behaviors and narrative comprehension that differ in the likelihood that specific interpretations will be drawn given the presence of message cues. Finds that, in general, cues biased young children toward drawing a particular representation but that fifth graders delayed choosing…

Finds that time restrictions did not significantly affect the thoughts, behavior, or state-communication apprehension (CA) of people with high public speaking anxiety. Finds that people expecting to be evaluated reported more negative thoughts and higher state-CA and exhibited more behavioral disruption than those not expecting to be evaluated.…

It is argued that any attempt to explicate the notion of lying can proceed only on a prior understanding of the notion of truth. Two Russian words for "truth" and two for "lie" are examined, and various dimensions of meanings of the pairs are discussed. (17 references) (LB)

Performs an interpretive analysis and comparison of six friendship pairs' discursive practices and patterns of interpersonal disputes. Identifies three relationally constituted modes of dispute management, termed "convenience,""cooperation," and "commitment." (SR)

Examines the way communication researchers write about the unconscious and its relationships with communication behavior. Shows that they use ordinary words to describe unconscious processes and are burdened by those words' implications of conscious agency. (SR)

Presents an overview of the CLUES (also known as the CL7) instrument. Discusses the instrument's reliability and validity and its application to organizational communication research. Suggests that the instrument demonstrates unidimensionality in low-context cultures, high reliability, and known validity in a wide array of relational types. (RS)