This paper proposes a general principle of topic resources as a key principle of conversation. The first section of the paper offers a discussion of the notion of cohesion as a condition in which interactants perceive that their utterances are related to one another and presents the "given-new" strategy (in which the interactants…

This paper explores systems of classification to develop a conceptual model adequate as an organized knowledge base for organizational communication research findings. The paper notes that present classification systems employed in organizational communication textbooks and in reviews of organizational literature are not adequate to the task of…

THE SPEECH IMPROVEMENT COURSE IS CONCERNED PRIMARILY WITH THE DEVELOPMENT OF CORRECT HABITS OF ORAL COMMUNICATION IN SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS. SUCH A COURSE SHOULD BE CONCERNED WITH IMPROVEMENT IN THREE MAIN AREAS-PROJECTION, AGREEABLE QUALITY, AND INTELLIGIBILITY. THE MOST IMPORTANT UNIT OF THE PROGRAM, PERHAPS, IS ITS LAUNCHING. STUDENTS SHOULD…

Ronald Reagan's rise from political neophyte to Republican candidate for governor of California in 1966 was characterized by a public relations strategy, which was bolstered by "The Speech," a 30-minute anti-big government, defense-of-freedom message. He presented this message appropriately to each audience to identify himself with…

Suggesting that the university faculty members assigned extra-curricular duties with forensics have been denied proper evaluation procedures, this paper argues for the need to apply professional evaluation standards to forensics directors. It proposes four separate components to be considered in developing such standards: (1) professional…

Noting that United States Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas has often been characterized as an "absolutist" in terms of First Amendment policy, this paper argues that, in fact, Douglas's policy positions provided for less than absolute freedom to communicate. The paper then reveals, through an anlaysis of 18 of Douglas's opinions,…

Antecedents of linguistic nonimmediacy were examined in a four-factor analysis of covariance with repeated measures design. Immediacy refers to the language of a message expressing a close relationship to the referent, while nonimmediacy suggests that the language expresses a more distant relationship. Subjects in the study were 118 college…

A study was conducted to identify the independent and conjoint influence of attitude similarity and initial interactions on interpersonal attraction to relative strangers. The 124 college students who were participants in the study were informed that they would be working on a project with either an attitudinally similar or dissimilar stranger…

Building a strong college debate program begins in the classroom where the coach can help young people engage in comprehensive research of contemporary findings, integrate the findings into meaningful analysis, develop argumentative skills, think on their feet, and do the best job of debating possible. A coach must also communicate to debaters…

To determine whether argument is logical, this paper reviews the empirical literature on perception, memory, and reasoning. It finds cognitive processes to be inferential, thus supporting the assumption that argument is logical. It notes, however, that a cognitive view of argument must be taken to appreciate this logicality, because people…

The authors studied the vocabulary of speech and writing of 45 college students to develop a list of the 25 most frequent words and to compare this list with similar lists by earlier investigators. They used a type-token ratio to aid determination of the similarities and differences between spoken and written vocabularies. Nineteen of the 25 words…

This paper discusses the unity of the Speech Communication Association (SCA). To keep the SCA from fragmenting further into isolated factions, the paper urges SCA members to maintain an awareness of their common goals within the broad context of the term "communication," to interact with one another in the research and study of not only…

In an experiment designed to explore the immediate disconfirming effects of strong and mild incongruent messages and the impact of certain contextual constraints on disconfirming effects, 192 male undergraduates evaluated videotaped examples of strong and mild sarcasm and joking and the complementary congruent forms of straightforward positive and…

This document describes two experiments that tested male and female attitudes toward sex-typical language. In the first experiment, 119 undergraduate females were asked to read and evaluate one of two written passages where the linguistic features were manipulated to create male and female sex-typed versions. Participants were tested on their…

The contents of this issue of the "Oral History Review" include eight articles, Oral History Council reports, and lists of the sites of future oral history colloquiums, of Oral History Association publications in print and in microform, and of contributors. Titles of articles and authors are as follows: "Oral History Comes of Age" by Samuel…