Surveyed company executives to discover whether their attitudes toward business slang expressions, or "buzzwords," were as negative as attitudes generally encountered in academics and journalists. Results suggest that buzzwords are useful, can sometimes be expressive, and add precision and comfort to everyday business communication. (PD)

Reviews the literature on role-taking and adaptive communication. Concludes that researchers should consider social cognition processes other than role-taking in exploring the connection between social perception and adaptive communication. (PD)

Results of this study suggest that regular oral interpretation course work had no effect on student's measured perspective-taking abilities, but an oral interpretation course specifically designed to increase these skills had the predicated effect. (PD)

Explored how much people remember from their conversations. Found that even after only five minutes subjects were able to recollect only about 10 percent of what was said. Also found that recall was affected by the mode of recall (written vs. oral) and the presence and type of memory goals. (PD)

Attempts to show how each of three influential critical theories--deconstructionism, reader response criticism, and authorial intention--implies a particular view of how literary discourse is or should be processed and indicates that each view is in part justified, but not to the extent claimed by the critics themselves. (CRH)

Provides information concerning the program quality of departments offering master's degrees in speech communication. Employs the subjective approach to measuring quality through the use of peer evaluations. (PD)

Reviews the progress of mass media effects research since the 1930s. (PD)

"The critical researcher's dilemma is that, while the topics, theories, and methods we have studied now seem to be in favor, the moral views and general analysis that prompted our studies are not." (Author)

Examines cross-cultural studies of news coverage, values and images, and journalistic standards. Suggests that the value of searching for commonalities lies in extending the knowledge of human behavior. (PD)

"Listening for differences" describes one simple method by which we might reach out to each other. No two people, after all, experience the world in exactly the same way, and we need to hear everyone's story in order to weave the entire tapestry of humanness. To cut someone short or to exclude someone is to leave a hole in the fabric of our…

The purpose of this study was to investigate undergraduate teaching assistant (UTA) competence and character and its relationship to learning in the basic communication classroom. Also of interest were the specific UTA communicator behaviors that increase or decrease student perceptions of competence and character. Students responded to a survey…

The paper describes work-in-progress and reflects upon a small research project, "A Small Study of Male Academics and Their Inclusive Teaching Strategies," in which the author trialed the use of e-mail communication as a medium for having repeated conversations with a number of male academics about their inclusive teaching practices.…

A study examined a form of other-initiated repair which occurs later than next turn, a form which is produced by nonnative speakers of English whose native language is Mandarin. Data consists of transcriptions of naturally occurring conversations from 12 native speaker-nonnative speaker (NS-NNS) dyads, friends who ordinarily chat. Conversational…

This paper describes a study of a speech community, a group of approximately 10 women, aged 25 to 65, who met at least 3 times a month to knit, drink coffee, and chat. The paper notes that knitting circles have survived through history because they serve a social function that surpasses historical events--they are communities that co-construct the…

The term "venting" has been used interchangeably with negatively-connotated words like "outburst,""bitching,""complaining," and with more functional words like "disclosing." A literature review of venting showed that researchers have approached the term from multiple perspectives. Because of the…