Describes how the I-CAN newsletter (for administrators and nonacademic persons interested in communication apprehension) was organized and is progressing. (PD)

A summary on the state of the art of communication apprehension and reticence by two great adversaries. Concludes that empirical research has now matured to a point where it can spawn a practical technology. (PD)

Recounts examples of incorrect language usage involving redundancies, such as "revert back," and "in the modern world of today." (RS)

Results of the study suggested that the four measurement instruments of communication problems are not capable of discriminating students with communication problems from students without. Concluded that what may be most important in distinguishing the two groups is whether or not persons perceive their uncomfortable feelings about communication…

Survey results identified 52 treatment programs which use a variety of formats, treatment methods, and evaluation procedures. The majority of respondents favored more programs of this nature at the college and university level. Arguments opposing the proliferation of special treatment programs were also identified. (PD)

Examines the separate and combined impact of hedges, hesitations, and intensifiers on perceptions of authoritativeness, sociability, character, and similarity, and the extent to which messages containing one or more of these language variables differ from a "prototypically" powerless message in evaluative consequences. (MS)

The research findings of profane language usage need to be extended so that more may be learned about human communication. In order to establish profane language usage norms, eighty-six university students were asked to estimate their profane language usage in each of three categories (excretory, religious, and sexual) in reference to three…

Provides practical information for those interested in implementing a communication apprehension program: (1) description of 24 communication programs; (2) glossary of various methods used to treat communication apprehension; and (3) classified bibliography arranged by treatment method. (PD)

In order to investigate speech accommodation--the way in which communicators influence each other's speaking patterns and rhythms--a study examined its occurrence, as well as the extent of a conversational partner's influence, and the influence of interpersonal uncertainty and differences in arousal level upon that accommodation process.…

Subjects completed sentences of the form NP1 aux V NP2 because (but) Pro...(e.g., John may scold Bill because he...) with a reason or motive for the action described. A basic perceptual strategy was hypothesized to underlie the comprehension of these sentences which have a potentially ambiguous pronoun in the subject position of the subordinate…

Investigates speech norms in the United States by determining the effects of three American regional dialects on the attitudes towards speakers held by audience members from the same three regions. Includes selected dialects represented by General American, Appalachian, and Bostonian dialects. (MH)

Extends the study of communication apprehension (CA) impact in the instructional environment through examination of high, low, and moderate CA levels relative to various performance situations in a basic communication course. Results indicate significant differences in achievement indices between the three CA groups. (JMF)

Debaters have several poor word-choice and word-formation habits that detract from their ethos as advocates as well as from the clarity of their arguments. In many instances, debaters, to their competitive and educational detriment, employ habitual phrases, questionable redefinitions, and poorly coined new words. Many currently popular debate…

Defines the rhetorical impreative (i.e. you know?, you see?, okay) as a "non-ah" type of speech disturbance wherein the rhetorical nature of the inherent questions neither seeks nor desires a response. Relates anxiety and floor control to rhetorical interrogatives in experimental testing conditions. (MH)

One of a series of semi-annual reports, this publication contains 18 articles which report the status and progress of studies on the nature of speech, instruments for its investigation, and practical applications. Articles are as follows: "The Emergence of Native-Language Phonological Influences in Infants: A Perceptual Assimilation…