Discusses factors that have delayed the development of basic research on both sign language and the deaf community in South Africa and presents findings of a study conducted to determine effective sign language communication between deaf and hearing signers in South Africa, the SimCom project. (14 references) (GLR)

Results of a study of learning disabled children's conversational competence indicate that they may not be providing their conversational partners with feedback that others need to adapt their communicative style to these children's comprehension levels. The difficulty in identifying social contexts where different conversational rules apply may…

Examines whether, and how, deaf adults adjust their nonvocal communicative behavior when facing one of three audience types: hearing adults who have learned a signed language, deaf adults who use a signed languageand deaf children of deaf parents. (FL)

An investigation of the confusion resulting from reliance on visual perceptual teachers in the identification of dactylemes (handshapes) in the American Manual Alphabet (MA) is reported. A hierarchy of errors varying with subjects' degree of expertness in the MA is established. This can help manual communication teachers develop techniques for…

Noting that societies are inherently elitist in their structuring, this paper argues that a greater understanding of society and the communication process can be gained by comprehending the nature of communication among the elite and from the elite to the nonelite. It attempts to provide a theoretical foundation for the investigation of elite…

Cross cultural research concerns nearly every teacher because of the proliferation of multicultural public schools and the fact that cultural differences cannot be ignored in the classroom. Communication in this situation requires a recognition of the cultural differences and in many cases the enhancement of these differences. To facilitate…

Reports on the results of a two-year study finding that college students' communication competence is linked to success in college, that high school communication experience is related to higher G.P.A., and that communication apprehension is related to perceptions of communication competence. Recommends replication employing a larger, more…

Five components of communication competence have been derived from research: affiliation/support, empathy, behavioral flexibility, social relaxation, and interaction management. This paper describes these dimensions of communication competence; it then reports on a study in which two college females judged by their peers to be effective…

Communicative competence has at least three components: grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, and strategic competence. Strategic competence is the knowledge of how to use one's language to communicate intended meaning. Foreign language students may develop competence in each of these three areas at different rates, but all are…

A discussion of the teaching of languages for special purposes (LSP) argues for giving greater attention to the learner's actual language needs. It suggests that conventional English for special purposes (ESP) is inadequate for the unique linguistic context of Papua New Guinea, and that further research be undertaken into implications of such an…

This booklet contains information on the Languages of the Disciplines Project, a federally funded program that seeks to identify the problems in receptive communication encountered by beginning university students in specific disciplines and the techniques for helping these students overcome their problems. The first section of the booklet notes…

Adult educators, recognizing grade communication problems between members of middle-class society (to which most belong) and individuals from culturally different groups are attending to cross-cultural communication research. Vastly different perceptions of reality, shaped by distinctive value systems and attitudes, underlie the problems.…