Prepared as part of a series applying recent research in oral and written communication instruction to classroom practice, this booklet reviews research and presents suggestions designed to improve the classroom communication climate. The first section of the booklet describes the process of building a supportive environment to reflect a range of…

To describe those behaviors leading to productive appraisal interviews of sales representatives, questionnaires were administered to 27 branch sales managers who supervised 160 sales representatives. Eleven managers received a preliminary questionnaire asking them to cite behaviors of the sales representatives that caused productive or…

United States President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev have strongly emphasized in several speeches that their ultimate goal is peace between their respective nations. However, this apparent shared goal has not come about, largely because they lack a common understanding of the meaning of peace. Both have stated that they wish…

Acknowledging that, although a survey of educational offerings in Norway reveals courses in theater, mass media, and speech therapy, the curriculum does not contain oral communication courses per se, such as those found in the United States, this article compares how and why general education systems and speech education have developed differently…

Interactional processes that lead to individual differences in children's communication styles and peer competence were explored in an examination of discourse and communication patterns used in parent-child and child-child interaction. Subjects were 38 children of 29-64 months in full-time day care and their mothers. Data was gathered through…

Focusing on the benefits derived from using plain English in business and technical writing, this document summarizes the presentations at a forum of Better Business Bureau council members. Titles of the articles and their authors are as follows: (1) "English: Number One Language of Business" (W. H. Tankersley); (2) "What Is Plain…

The foreign and international media studies section of the proceedings includes the following 11 papers: "The Contemporary Pacific Islands Press" (Suzanna Layton); "Cultural Domination and Sovereignty: The Development of European TV Quotas, 1981-89" (Ulf Jonas Bjork); "A Content Analysis of TV News in Saudi Arabia and…

A study examined whether billboard advertising of tobacco and alcohol products is differentially targeted toward White, Black, Asian, and Hispanic neighborhoods. The study analyzed 901 billboards in neighborhood commercial districts in San Francisco, California, giving particular attention to tobacco and alcohol billboards. Neighborhood census…

Defining myth as a cultural narrative in symbolic form that articulates a world view and offers consensus with that view, this paper uses a brief "New York Times" report on the Soviet shooting down of South Korean airline flight 007 as the basis for comparison of international news and myth. Following a review of the literature on myth…

A study examined the communication problems between nondisabled and disabled persons. A questionnaire was created based on a theoretical model of intercultural communication involving three levels of analysis: intrapersonal, interpersonal, and systematic. One hundred and two nondisabled and 40 disabled subjects reacted to a helping situation…

The history of intercultural communication as a field of study in the United States is outlined. The origins of intercultural communication in cultural anthropology are explored. A relationship is pointed out among the fields of intercultural communication, cross-cultural communication, interracial communication, interethnic communication, and…

Research on sex differences in communication has produced mixed and contradictory results. An erroneous overlap exists between self reports of male-female behaviors, others' reports of perceived behaviors, and stereotyped projections based on social conditioning. The solution to this confusion in gender communication research may be triangulation,…

Noting the call for research that links argument theory with negotiation, this paper examines the nature and function of argument negotiation in current organizational bargaining research theories. Five perspectives are extrapolated to define "argument" and demonstrate how different viewpoints can affect understanding of the negotiation…

A study examined whether the context in which interaction occurs would lead to any differences in adult perceptions of the relationship between children's communicator style and social attractiveness. Because previous research has indicated that teachers find children to be attractive when they communicate with friendly, relaxed, and attentive…

To determine what students expected their speech teachers to be like, students in introductory speech courses at two universities were asked to complete a questionnaire on the first day of class, prior to meeting their instructor. The students were told their instructor was male or female, but otherwise were given no information about the teacher.…