Articles of The Bill of Rights, although comprising the fundamental principles of American society, are often opposed by many people on varying grounds. For example, many people support physical abuses by law enforcement officials, even though they might violate constitutional rights. The First Amendment, simple in original wording, has resulted…

This report documents observations and findings from a site visit to Southern Hills Developmental Services (SHDS), an agency providing services to people with disabilities in the South Dakota community of Hot Springs. Half of the people using the services are American Indians. The report discusses the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and traditions…

The failure of many international development projects is prompting project planners and implementers to reexamine the process of technological transfer between countries. This process involves one culture imposing change upon another in such a way that the recipient culture not only accepts the change but also adopts it as its own and expands…

A study investigated translation problems arising in physician-patient interviews conducted in two languages with the help of an interpreter. Subjects were four adult native speakers of Gujarati, aged 42-70, whose physician interviews were videotape-recorded and translated, and the discourse was analyzed. Patients spoke in Gujarati, and the…

The 1992 introduction of Compact Disc-Interactive (CD-I) technology, the initial obstacles this new technology faces, and its known progress in its first year are explored, focusing on why new technologies are successful or are not adopted. Similar to a VCR, a CD-I player links directly into any television receiver, and each 5-inch disc is capable…

The conventional nature of school-sponsored writing, in which writing becomes a formal operant within the closed space of classroom signifying practices, is one in which the feminine mode of expression often announces it cannot play. While the masculine style of peer-response to student writing is largely aggressive, the feminine is conceptually…

A cross-cultural study was undertaken to examine levels of communication apprehension reported by five- to eleven-year-old subjects in the United States and Sweden. The approach was twofold: the examination of elementary age subjects and the use of their native language. The Personal Report of Communication Fear was administered to 186 males and…

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…

The basic premise of this paper is that second language learning or teaching is an exercise in contrastive linguistics because learners filter and assimilate the second language through the categories and experiences represented by the first language to create situationally appropriate utterances. By selecting and exchanging information,…

The literature on foreign language instruction focuses on communicative competence and proficiency in producing culturally and situationally appropriate utterances. Traditionally, nonverbal aspects of communication have not been emphasized. Systematic study of this field is relatively recent in communication research. Both verbal and nonverbal…

Previous studies have revealed that the correlation between communication apprehension (CA) and academic achievement may be significantly different for male and female elementary school students. A study investigated the effects of CA, sex of student, and three teacher characteristics on teacher expectations of academic achievement. Subjects, 221…

Using an evaluation of a hospital-based hospice as a case study, this paper analyzes problematic issues surrounding health care teams (HCTs) in light of findings revealed in the literature concerning HCT structures and processes. The factors of coordination and role definitions in HCTs and their manifestations in a particular hospice HCT in terms…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 16 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) the delivery of bad news in organizations; (2) the diffusion of judicial innovations; (3) speech action in organizational socialization; (4) differential…

The concepts of moral reasoning developed by Lawrence Kohlberg can be applied to the analysis of communication in intimate relationships in an attempt to deal with the high rate of marital dissolution. Kohlberg has identified three levels of moral reasoning: (1) preconventional, in which a person reasons in terms of punishment, reward, or exchange…

A key characteristic of multinational companies is a worldwide perspective and orientation in managerial decision making. In its quest for international opportunities, a multinational company confronts many problems and uncertainties in evaluating and dealing with political, legal, economic, social, cultural, and governmental policy variables and…