A study examined age differences in the use of interaction management strategies. Students (13 seventh-graders and 24 eleventh-graders) were asked to describe how to play a game to a peer. Each speaker then became a listener in the next dyad. A tally was kept of speaker and listener use of six categories of feedback, and the quality of that…

In an effort to describe the linguistic relational categories used by elementary school children, 75 children in grades one through six were asked to complete a puzzle by placing each of three identical triangles on a drawing of a fish, one on the dorsal, one on the ventral, and one on the tail. A piece of Velcro was attached to the back of two…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 12 titles deal with the following topics: (1) awareness of self, awareness of environment, mental imagery, communicative competency, and theatrical improvisation; (2) the evolution of scenography in the Western theatre; (3)…

The integration of American and European mass communication research models would provide a broader sociocultural framework for formulating communication policy. Emphasizing a functional approach, the American diffusionist model assumes that society is a system of interrelated parts naturally tending toward a state of dynamic equilibrium. The…

To explore the impact of the environment on perceptions of compliance gaining situations, 97 university students were asked to recall and describe situations in which they had had to persuade someone to do something. Their descriptions of compliance gaining situations were then evaluated for similarity by three additional groups of students. The…

A study examined the differential grading that occurs in basic speech communication classrooms and attempted to identify predictors for the differences in the grades that male and female students receive. Subjects were 47 women and 48 men randomly selected from an undergraduate speech course at a private midwestern college. Subjects'…

This paper describes a graduate course at Louisiana State University in Shreveport, entitled "The Electronic Church, with an Emphasis on Its Evangelists." The paper addresses some of the ways in which criticism is taught via the television evangelists. Following a mini-course in speech analysis, the course focuses on the various aspects…

This paper discusses ways in which the innate act of "telling" can be used in teaching to strengthen the bond between teacher and student and enrich the process of learning. The paper offers an intuitive rationale for using "telling" as a teaching mode in the community college classroom and provides a formal explanation of "telling" based on the…

Public information campaigns have become a staple of contemporary crime prevention efforts. While formal research on such campaigns has been limited, some important lessons may be learned from evaluation of the national "Take a Bite Out of Crime" or "McGruff" crime prevention campaign initiated in 1979. A large-scale formal…

The instrument designed by Patricia Kearney to measure communication style was chosen for a study of validity and reliability for three reasons: (1) the format of the instrument appeared to be more descriptive than evaluative, (2) its theoretical foundations encouraged the viewpoint that there is no one best communication style, and (3) it was…

Based on the notion that a dialectical perspective better represents the processes and tensions involved in family communication than do traditional models, an exploratory study examined the communication practices of two television families: the Huxtables of "The Cosby Show," and the Keatons of "Family Ties." The series were…

Using Toulmin's model of argument as its methodology, this paper analyzes the arguments employed by Lee Iacocca, chief executive officer of Chrysler Corporation, to persuade the United States Congress to provide backing for loans necessary for the corporation's financial survival in 1979-1980. After delineating the three main claims made by…

A study examined the academic hiring process from the perspectives of department heads, search committee members, and newly hired faculty. Respondents, 349 academic professionals at a large university in the Midwest, completed a questionnaire developed for the study to determine (1) the importance and ordering of information categories on academic…

The theoretical notions underpinning what stress is, where it is located, how it is thought to operate and with what sorts of consequences are the focuses of this paper. Beginning with a list of sources representing the medical/psychological model of stress, the paper then discusses this model, including how biologic stress is conceptualized by…

Materials dealing with aspects of argumentation theory are cited in this annotated bibliography. The 50 citations are organized by topic as follows: (1) argumentation; (2) the nature of argument; (3) traditional perspectives on argument; (4) argument diagrams; (5) Chaim Perelman's theory of rhetoric; (6) the evaluation of argument; (7) argument…