Explores the possibility of sex and socioeducational differences in young infants' patterns of vocal interaction with mothers and strangers at two and three months of age. Infants at both ages vocalized more to mothers than to strangers. (BB)

Reports on two studies that examine effects of trait communication apprehension on students' production and perceptions of written feedback. Finds, in the first study, trait anxiety was related to negative external attributions; while the second study showed that anxiety was associated with more internal interpretations. (MS)

Describes materials and a specific teaching approach aimed at improving an aspect of children's communication known as referential communication. Argues that this ability and the complementary listening skills are basic to successful classroom discourse and that they are important abilities in most communication. (KO)

Responds to four conference papers (same issue; see CS 737 952 to CS 737 955) on the range of tasks confronting administrators of speech departments as they cope with current difficulties and look toward the next decade. Responds from the viewpoints of both the faculty member of a department and a dean or higher administrator. (MS)

Maintains that community colleges have a unique mission requiring student-centered teachers who are both content experts and effective classroom communicators. Advocates broadening the scope of communication education to include research and programs to prepare more effective community college faculty. (SR)

Defines Uncertainty Reduction Theory. Examines the influence of cultural variability on communication. Argues that cultural variability in individualism-collectivism influences uncertainty reduction in ingroup and outgroup relationships, while cultural variability in masculinity-femininity influences uncertainty reduction in same- and opposite-sex…

Delineates the differences between prose fiction and media drama. Outlines what is gained and what is lost in translating prose fiction to the radio. The constraints include program formats and the resulting lack of character development. The gains include liveliness and immediacy. Discusses use of flashback and narration. (KO)

Analyzes the television advertising of the two female candidates for Nebraska governor in 1986 to examine identity-building strategies in the campaign. Finds that gender perceptions were a factor even in this "genderless" election, and each candidate's political identity was constructed through the interaction of gender characteristics…

Using a questionnaire given to oral examiners working in the field, this study investigates the different perspectives that examiners bring to their assessment of conversation on a prepared topic. The oral examination studied consisted of three parts--discussing stimulus material, conversing on a prepared topic and discussing issues of personal…

Applies a Vygotskyan perspective to explain the speech activity of 16 third-year high school learners of Spanish, focusing on their talk about task, talk about talk, and use of English during a problem-solving speaking task. Findings suggest that not all speech activity between second-language learners during classroom communicative tasks is…

Provides an analysis of the syntax of Straits Salish. Main clauses consist of an initial predicate followed by a second position clitic string of inflectional elements, the subject pronoun and tense. Evidence is provided against copular verb analysis as further proof of the lack of the noun/verb distinction at the lexical level. (52 references)…

Examined the possibility that auditory stimuli with properties of adult-to-infant speech are more detectable in a noisy ambient environment than ones that resemble adult-to-adult speech. Findings suggests that properties that characterize adult-to-infant speech may compensate for young infants' low-frequency deficits and therefore facilitate the…

Describes changes in philosophy, departmental objectives, departmental title, curriculum, and faculty made by the chair of a speech communications and theater department in a small liberal arts college. (SR)

Presents a view of the relative roles of logical presupposition and shared knowledge in "it"-cleft constructions. Indicators of shared knowledge relate to a speaker's "assumptions" about the state of the hearer's knowledge, whereas presuppositions indicate a speaker's "requirements" for what should be included within…

Analyzes speech samples from 9- to 12-year olds with specific language impairment. There were few differences between utterances that did and did not include correctly inflected forms; errors occurred on words later in an utterance. Slowed processing in a limited system handling several operations in parallel may lead to the omission of…