Karen A. Foss

A Relational Model for Managing Second Language Anxiety

Researchers and teachers in the fields of speech communication and second language acquisition have been concerned with the phenomenon of communication anxiety. Although the anxieties experienced by native speakers of a language differ somewhat from those experienced by nonnative speakers, we suggest that students perceptions of their communication abilities and performances must be taken into account when dealing with the anxiety responses of both groups. This article proposes that a relational model of communication competence developed by Spitzberg and Cupach (1984) can be used as a foundation for understanding and working with students experiencing anxiety in using a second language. Specific exercises for helping students manage their perceptions of their communication are offered.

THE STATUS OF RESEARCH ON WOMEN AND COMMUNICATION

The purpose of this essay is to survey and summarize the research on women, gender, and sex differences that has been published in speech communication journals. Five categories of research emerged from this survey: historical treatments of women, sex differences, images of women in the media, education and pedagogy, and surveys and integrative works. While future research is needed to fill in the gaps made evident by this survey of literature, perhaps more important is to begin to question and investigate the assumptions underlying current research about women.

What's in a name? Accounts of married women's name choices

This study explores implications of womens marital‐name choices by examining actual accounts women give about their names. It draws on the work of Harre (1984) and Shotter (1984) to assume that accounts of behavior can reveal information about how contemporary women make sense of their experiences as women. Accounts were collected in questionnaires about names sent to three groups of married women—those who use their husbands’ names, those who use their birth names, and those who use hyphenated or new names. The respondents’ accounts reveal concerns about self, concerns about relationships, and concerns about cultural expectations of marriage. Women with their husbands’ names place most importance on relationships, with cultural concerns second and issues of self third. Those who retain their birth names value self first, followed by relationships and then culture. Women with hyphenated or new names value self and relationships equally. These clear differences in world view suggest that women have access...

The day after: Rhetorical vision in an ironic frame

This essay presents a fantasy theme analysis of the issue of nuclear war as it emerges from a comparison of personal statements and the film The Day After. These forms of discourse resonate with one another and reflect a rhetorical vision consisting in part of actors as victims, the bomb as antagonist, the scene as one of rubble, and plot as one of acts of destruction, death, and attempts to survive. It is suggested that a new deep structure of irony underlies the rhetorical vision of nuclear war and the implications of this frame for the nuclear war issue are discussed.

Communication Apprehension: Resources for the Instructor.

This essay provides practical information for those interested in implementing a communication apprehension program. It consists of three parts: Part I is a description of twenty‐four communication programs; Part II is a glossary of various methods used to treat communication apprehension; and Part III is a classified bibliography, arranged by treatment method.

John Lennon and the advisory function of eulogies

This essay uses Burkes concept of guilt, resulting from hierarchy and perfection inherent in language, to explore the symbolic dimensions of the shooting of John Lennon and its public coverage. Implications of this study for a genre of assassination rhetoric are suggested.

Celluloid rhetoric: The use of documentary film to teach rhetorical theory 1

The documentary film is finding its way with increasing frequency into communication classrooms. Inherently rhetorical in nature, it is receiving considerable attention from rhetorical scholars, who have analyzed various documentaries from a rhetorical perspective as well as suggested several methodologies for looking at film rhetorically. This article outlines a course which makes use of documentary film in yet another way—to illustrate rhetorical theories and principles. This course focuses on six contemporary theorists— I. A. Richards, Richard Weaver, Stephen Toulmin, Chaim Perelman, Marshall McLu‐han, and Kenneth Burke. Students come to understand the ideas of these theorists via the application and analysis of documentary film.

Out from underground: The discourse of emerging fugitives

Jane Alpert, Bernardine Dohrn, Abbie Hoffman, and Cathlyn Wilkerson were among a handful of fugitives who went underground in the 1970s to avoid fines and imprisonment stemming from protest activities. In emerging from underground, these fugitives faced dramatic role passages that they handled discursively by employing two pairs of paradoxical strategies—integration/differentiation and deviance/respectability—that they did not attempt to resolve. The first construct in each pair managed the self‐image of the fugitive; the second functioned to accommodate societal expectations. I suggest that the maintenance of paradox allowed the fugitives to present ambiguous identities and thus to achieve a balance between consistency and accommodation that may prove to be the organizing principle of any discourse that accompanies dramatic role shifts.

Singing the rhythm blues: An argumentative analysis of the birth‐control debate in the Catholic Church

The Catholic Church reaffirmed its traditional opposition to birth regulation in 1968 with the encyclical, Humanae Vitae, a response unexpected by many Church members and outsiders alike. To understand this reaffirmation, the arguments in the birth‐control debate are organized according to Burkes triad of motivational orders—nature, reason, and authority. This analysis suggests that, whereas the arguments in Humanae Vitae were based on authority, this stance offered a flexibility not possible by grounding arguments in either nature or in reason.