Gerald M. Phillips

Reticence: Pathology of the normal speaker

(1968). Reticence: Pathology of the normal speaker. Speech Monographs: Vol. 35, No. 1, pp. 39-49.

Teaching group discussion via computer‐mediated communication

A traditional group discussion course was re‐designed to operate via computer‐mediated communication. The course was offered in Jour consecutive semesters to more than 500 students and is now a regular component of the curriculum. The results showed more frequent student contact with instructors, high level of course approval by students, and group output that equalled or excelled that of traditionally taught courses. Logistical and pedagogical problems with CMC‐based instruction are discussed.

Rhetoritherapy Versus The Medical Model: Dealing With Reticence

Anxiety no longer appears to be a major factor in determining treatment for problem communicators. The medical model has been rejected for a rhetorical model which permits a rhetoritherapist to retrain the client in the rhetorical sub‐processes in order to improve his or her communication capability.

The Reticent Syndrome: Some Theoretical Considerations about Etiology and Treatment.

Reticence as a composite of behaviors appears similar to a number of neurotic disorders. Reticence can be diagnosed by clinical observation and interview; other measures have failed to produce a truly reticent population. Those persons who are clinically diagnosed appear to respond best to a directive therapy‐teaching treatment program, in which the setting of behavioral goals represents the keystone of the treatment. There appears to be close association between reticent behavior and the inability to specify the details of behavior classified either as desirable or undesirable. Thus, forcing subjects to concentrate on specific phrasing provides a test of success or failure for them, and builds rewards and punishments into the training program. While clinicians have reported considerable success, more precise measures of effectiveness of treatment are needed.

The Peculiar Intimacy of Graduate Study: A Conservative View.

Graduate study can be described as an intimate relationship between a supervising professor and a student. The relationship may be expressed as a mentor‐ward involvement in which the faculty member seeks advancement for his student in order to enhance the field and his role in it. While there are some hazards in this kind of relationship, it represents our best hope for the continuation of scholarship.

A competent view of “competence”

Preoccupation with definition and measurement of competence and skill is derived from a social science base. Such concern is an abstraction and not necessarily directed to improvement of pedagogical technology. The enterprise may be useful, but it would be more useful to re‐define the locus of interest in the field of speech communication to techniques of training performance improvement. Under such a redefinition, the process of defining performance and skill would result in a technology for communication skills training directed to personal and vocational needs of individuals rather than development of generalizations about acquisition and development of performance and skill.

An end to anxiety treating speech problems with rhetoritherapy

The controversy over the connection between anxiety and nonproductive speech behavior can be resolved by taking note that alteration in behavior usually alters anxiety level. While many theorists recommend that treatment of anxiety will be beneficial, there is little contention that modification of anxiety alone alters skillful behavior. Rhetoritherapy is a mode of changing communication behavior through application of heuristics of problem solving and behavior change. Research studies tend to indicate a high level of success and selected case histories illustrate the process.

Reprise: Farewell reticence, good‐by apprehension! Building a practical nosology of speech communication problems

An attempt to validate four major measures of speech communication problems on a defined sample of students with observable, reportable speech communication problems was undertaken. Results of discriminant analysis when the scores on the four scales are entered into the analysis suggest that the scales are not capable of discriminating students with problems from students without. Although factor analysis of all items produced seven factors which indicated underlying situational concerns rather than general anxiety, when scores on the factors were entered into discriminant analysis, the results suggested that situational factor scales are incapable of distinguishing those who have communication problems from those who do not. The authors conclude that what may be most important in distinguishing the two groups is whether or not persons perceive their uncomfortable feelings about communication as problems. Phenomenological analysis may be the appropriate method for uncovering the discriminating variables.

Rhetoric and Its Alternatives as Bases for Examination of Intimate Communication.

“Interpersonal communication” is an abstraction that includes too much. Intimate communication between friends and lovers represents a special case of exchanged discourse that has had little attention devoted to it. Both behaviorists and humanistic psychologists have attempted such study but their work has resulted in a mythology which is counter‐productive. A study of 511 intimate relationships demonstrates some particular consistencies which appear to represent intimacy as a type of rhetorical situation. Examining such relationships by using a set of rhetorical heuristics appears to be functionally productive in theory‐building and application.

Assumption of the burden: Science or criticism?

This article adjudicates the claim to science made by current researchers in speech communication. It argues the point that contemporary research is best characterized as criticism, and that the cause of research in the field would be best advanced if scholars engaged in the enterprise of discourse analysis and conversation analysis regarded themselves as critics and made themselves subject to criticism as such.