This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 18 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: the relationship of speech communication variables to perceived communication competence; interpersonal communication in a simulation game of intercultural contact; the effects of a communicator's race and dialect on receiver evaluation of source credibility; the effects of certain personality characteristics on communication intent and behavior; the effects of physical distances in dyadic communication; a social theory of communication; images communicated in the 1968 Humphrey-Nixon presidential campaign; control patterns in children's communication; speaker expectation of audience response; communication concerns of preservice and inservice elementary school teachers; rhetoric and language in speech acts of urban black drug addicts; vocal and stylistic characteristics of selected radio commercials; uncertainty in interpersonal relationships; the effect of sex, sex-role identification, and time on persuasibility and message recall; and the relationship between receivers' level of involvement with a message topic and their processing of the information in the message. (GW)