Analysis of data from the 1987-88 National Survey of Families and Households indicates that conservative Protestant parents of preschoolers and school-age children were significantly less likely than other parents to report yelling at their children. Moreover, estimated effects of denominational affiliation on parental use of yelling were partly…

Comments on building departmental excellence through creating conditions for development of the focus that emerged at the Speech Communication Department at the University of Illinois. Considers how the constructivist turn in communication studies at Illinois in the late 1970s and early 1980s underscores the value of multiple-group cluster hiring…

Replies to Beatty and McCroskey's response to this author's response and challenges to their articles in this issue and elsewhere on communibiology. Explains why taking biology seriously in human communication does not entail either the belief that biology is genetically determined or that human biological systems are immutable. (SR)

Analyzes transcripts of job interviews involving nine English-speaking applicants from Chinese backgrounds and two experienced interviewers from Anglo-American MNCs (Multinational Corporations) in Singapore in order to reveal subtle clashes in culture. Finds that applicants from a Chinese background may be disadvantaged when being interviewed for…

Presents annotations of articles, commentaries, and publications that emphasize the importance of communication and the role of the study of communication in contemporary life. Discusses six emergent themes. Concludes that communication education develops the whole person, improves the work of education, advances the interests of society, bridges…

Discusses the lexical element "yeah," observed in the speech of nonnative speakers of English whose native language is Mandarin. Using the framework of conversation analysis, discusses the same-turn repair environment in which the token "yeah" occurs but reveals that the token serves as an additional component, doing something…

A comparison of 22 students in a traditional curriculum and 70 in a curriculum using speech science instrumentation demonstrated that opportunities to experience research improved attitudes toward and comfort with the research process. Findings support early introduction of scientific method into the communication disorders curriculum. (SK)

Examines the production of wh-questions in the speech of four monolingual child speakers of Catalan who were recorded longitudinally as part of an earlier study, obtained from the CHILDES database. Proposes that the early absence of wh-questions is a consequence of the early underspecification of tense. (Author/VWL)

Addresses the issue of using a continuous speech recognition tool to obtain phonetic or phonological representations of speech. Two experiments were carried out in which the performance of a continuous speech recognizer was compared to the performance of expert listeners in a task of judging whether a number of prespecified phones had been…

This study evaluated the ability to process auditory temporal-envelope cues in six children with dyslexia and two groups of six each normal control children and adults. Children with dyslexia showed poorer reception of voicing, manner, and place of articulation for unprocessed speech and poorer reception of voicing for "speech-envelope noise."…

Describes an alternative approach to a communication lab or speaking center known as the Speech Center, which serves the entire university community. Notes that the use of the center is based entirely on voluntary participation by faculty and staff. Reviews methods and operating procedures for this alternative program. (SG)

Following pretraining with everyday objects, 1- to 4-year-old children received listener training with three pairs of arbitrary stimuli of differing shapes. For each pair, 9 children were trained to select one stimulus in response to the spoken word /zog/ and the other to the spoken word /vek/. Next, in the look-at-sample category match-to-sample…

The authors investigated the effects of gender on the social dynamics and outcomes of conversations involving 120 children (mean age = 8 years 7 months). Children were taught particular values for different shaped counters and placed in same-gender or mixed-gender pairs with children who were taught different values. Pairs were asked to add the…

Many researchers have stressed that the acoustic environment is crucial to the speech perception, academic performance, attention, and participation of students in classrooms. Classrooms in highly urbanised locations are especially vulnerable to noise, a major influence on the acoustic environment. The purpose of this investigation was to…

Vowel durations following the production of voiced and voiceless stop consonants produced during simultaneous communication (SC) were investigated by recording sign language users during SC and speech alone (SA). Under natural speaking conditions, or speaking alone (SA), vowels following voiced stop consonants are longer in duration than vowels…