The role of the agitator in society and the special characteristics of women agitators--in particular, Emma Goldman, an American anarchist from the early twentieth century--are discussed in this paper. Specific examples of the rhetoric used by Emma Goldman in her speeches (supporting anarchism, against women's suffrage, against abortion control,…

A study examined three aspects of the collective bargaining situation that involves, either directly or indirectly, communication behavior: (1) the number of opportunities to communicate, (2) the degree of cooperation/competitiveness shown by an opponent, and (3) the degree of communication apprehension possessed by parties to the process.…

The generic use of masculine terms may be viewed as a grammatical device that carries the non-specific meaning of gender without confusion with the specific meaning, or as a practice in which the masculine terms retain their gender-specific meaning in neutral contexts and bias the perceiver toward the interpretations of male references. In three…

In times of scarce resources, college faculty consider the decision making process to be too time consuming in light of the potential pay-off, and in times of scarce human resources, universities frequently face the problem of overworking a few bright individuals. Speech faculty members' survival depends to a large extent upon their extensive…

This book presents a concise history of the first 100 years of development of the school of speech at Northwestern University (Illinois). Following an introduction that provides an overview of the school, the first chapter focuses on both the efforts of Robert McLean Cumnock to found a school of oratory on the principles of elocution and the…

Noting that while individuals need opportunities to develop cognitive and symbolic understanding of communication principles and skills, this paper argues that they also need to develop an experiential understanding in order to use those principles and skills in building and enhancing relationships. To accomplish this, the paper offers a…

This two-part learning module provides information and several exercises to help classroom instructors understand and improve their personal communication styles. The module first identifies two broad types of communicators: those who think before they talk and those who think while they talk. It then provides a series of exercises to help the…

In a survey of commercial braodcasters, 80% of the respondents felt that university communications majors seeking on-the-air, nonnews jobs were unqualified for their chosen profession. Because teachers of oral interpretation possess the performance expertise that broadcasters need, they must be more actively involved in teaching broadcast…

A study assessed the relationship of the independent variables of interpersonal attraction to the dependent variables of feeling good, relational safety, and uncertainty level. Subjects were 75 elementary and secondary school teachers, 61 communication students, 18 child development professionals, and 8 service club members. Each subject completed…

Presently there are nearly 20,000 undergraduate majors in broadcasting, with the majority enrolled in speech communication departments. However, estimates hold that at best only one-half of those seeking positions in television will actually find them. This indicates the need for a media student to receive a good general education in areas other…

An increasingly popular form of mass media persuasion is the "docudrama," a hybrid of the informative documentary and the dramatic film. The docudrama format presents viewers with a purposive viewpoint or value-laden interpretation of reality and contains some degree of historical accuracy and factual authenticity. The docudrama also…

The frequencies and co-occurrence distributions of some of the prosodic features in the speech of children are discussed. The emphasis is on the determination of systems and structure of non-segmental lectal variability in the children's speech without primary reference to function. The primary data consisted of selected episodes of connected…

Due to the recent Federal redefinition of "basic skills," large scale assessments of speaking and listening proficiencies will proliferate. In planning assessment procedures, educators must be sensitive not only to psychometric validity, but also to pedagogical validity: the effects of testing on curricular content and instructional strategies.…

This paper explores the small claims court as an alternative forum for the instruction of argumentation and suggests a possible format of a course utilizing such a concept. The first section of the paper offers a short history of the small claims court. The second section contains a course syllabus outlining the format of an argumentation course…

Data from a series of surveys of voters in the Midwest, conducted during the 1976 presidential election campaign, were used to explore the effects of the campaign in relation to when people decided for whom to vote. A second purpose was to consider the adequacy of the traditional dichotomous model of voters: people who make up their minds early…