Aimed at writers, speakers, students, and all who wish to communicate with clarity and strength, this book illuminates the principles of effective word use. It features dozens of helpful guidelines and memorable examples--from Tennessee Williams to Oprah Winfrey, from Demosthenes to Dr. Seuss--that illustrate the basics of choosing words and using…

This paper presents an in-depth look at semantics and how it has been and continues to be studied in mass communication. The paper notes that modern communication scholars have largely ignored the importance of semantics to mass media research. The paper examines the historical roots of semantics, noting that the 1930s saw the intellectual…

Hip hop rhetoric is a cultural language used by a majority of African Americans, and some European Americans. This type of rhetoric has the ability to change meaning, to eliminate negative messages, and to code language that can only be used by the group who understands its meaning. This style should be of concern to scholars in the field of…

Intended for adults in search of improved language skills and their leaders, this handbook provides opportunities to strengthen abilities to listen, observe, organize, solve problems, evaluate, and draw tentative conclusions about the English language. The handbook contains a proposition about the English language, suggests procedures to confirm…

Distinguishing the contextual realm addressed by ontological education as a valid area for inquiry by those who think about language and communication, this paper discusses an approach to education that is ontological in nature, in that its focus is the "being" of human beings rather than their knowledge. The paper explores several ideas…

The theoretical and educational perspective presented in this paper offers a foundation for the way in which communication becomes a tool to promote social economic expansion and awareness of multiple international cultural realities. Part I examines the philosophies of Paulo Freire and Peter Drucker which provide the core of the paper. Part II…

This research report is intended to provide the National Languages Institute of Australia (NLIA) with an overview of the issues demanding attention in the fields of interpreting and translating. While interpreting and translating have received attention in major language policy reports, subsequent language policy implementation has rarely…

This paper tells the story of a pedagogy conference keynote event that is both specific and individual as well as emblematic of the difficulties that individuals face as academics and teachers. The paper explores the problematic relationship between power and responsibility, between privilege and accountability--issues that teachers are always…

Literacy today has three challenges: greater diversity in the school population, newer media, and unwarranted intrusion from the outside world. To deal with greater student diversity, there should be greater differentiated instruction in teaching reading and writing; and to cope with the growing needs of students and teachers, principals are…

Building from scholarly works on persuasion and compliance-gaining, a study investigated magazine query letters that attempt to persuade an editor to buy the article offered, examining what message elements make them successful. Forty magazine editors provided copies of 100 recently accepted magazine query letters, which were compared with 50…

While not attempting to unify the various theories in cultural studies, this paper proposes pointers or directions to further transformations of cultural studies. The paper identifies and analyzes the works of two theorists, who have largely been ignored in cultural studies, to suggest a resolution of the theoretical conflicts surrounding cultural…

A number of organizational communication analysts have argued that the field is in the midst of a paradigm shift, away from a strictly rational to a more transactional view of organization, but their arguments are not situated in a well-explicated communication theory. This paper argues for the existence of two, mutually exclusive worldviews of…

Critical linguistics, an area of study within linguistics that has developed since the 1970s, is discussed. Critical linguistics argues that different groups, societies, and ideologies have different understandings of reality because they classify and categorize with and through language in different ways. Therefore, meaning is not something…

A sociocultural framework for examining the use of English as a Second Language (ESL) in Hong Kong is outlined and discussed. It incorporates or draws on concepts of the socio-historical nature of language, critical analysis of communication, and systemic-functional analysis of language use. Using this framework to analyze the current situation of…

Theories of phallic authority outlined by Jaques Lacan, Sigmund Freud, and Luce Irigaray suggest that one can effectively undo authority only from a position of authority, a position that traps feminists within the very phallic economy they hope to subvert. Attempting to avoid this trap, feminist pedagogues have made a distinction between…