This thesis examines the television reporters' verbal depictions of two rescue events, the rescue of Jessica McClure in 1987 and the rescue of three whales at Pt. Barrow, Alaska in 1988, in order to discover what rhetorical techniques were used to appeal to the public interest. Analog criticism, metaphorical analysis and pentadic analysis were used to discover the dominant language reporters chose. Three main conclusions were drawn from this analysis: (1) use of the dramatistic pentad showed how reporters focused public attention away from the purpose,(2) verbal and visual depictions cannot be separated when studying television news stories and (3) two different styles of depiction were used to portray two very similar events.

What is the importance of political speechmaking? Do state governors discuss presidential priorities? This study addresses these questions by analyzing the contents of annual State of the State addresses given by governors from 2012 to 2014 during the presidency of Barack Obama. A descriptive paper provides evidence that governors primarily discuss employment and economic issues in their addresses, are discussing greater number of policy issues than in previous decades, and are delivering their address before the presidential State of the Union message. Examining health care and immigration policy in separate empirical papers, I theorize that contextual factors, including legislative partisanship, public approval, and presidential influence may affect the extent to which policies supported by the Obama administration are rhetorically referenced by governors. Empirical analyses found limited support for the influence of divided government, but demonstrated significant evidence for the importance of including state-centric factors, including annual employment rate and proximity to Mexico, as well as temporal effects, into future analyses of gubernatorial rhetoric.

Our goal was to establish some form of interpretation between the analytical work of Carl Jung in depth psychology and the views of Marshall McLuhan regarding the impact of media. It was hoped that such a correlation of contrasting viewpoints would yield additional insight in the study of mass reactions to media. In accomplishing this purpose a “universe” based upon analytical psychology was juxtaposed with an expressly “McLuhanesque” analysis of media and technological effects. After establishing correlations between the major dynamics of the two systems, several functional conclusions were reached. These are: (1) that media have an inescapable influence, (2) that media sustain consciousness as their content, (3) that media take a major role in the functions of the unconscious, (4) that media participate in the integration between internal and external, and (5) that media directly effect the requirements for and suitability of symbolic vehicles. These conclusions are the product of correlations between two apparently dichotomous systems; one developed primarily through analyses of external effectors, and the other, primarily through analyses of internal elements. Since our conclusions are not in disagreement with current views in the field, the outcome of our research is in keeping with our goal of adding to available material dealing with the analysis of mass reactions to media.

The increasing contact between countries in today’ shrinking world indicates an urgent need for effective communication between cultures. Fundamental to satisfying this need is an understanding of cultural value systems—what factors have created them and how they interact within society. This paper addresses the value systems of two countries that recently have found themselves in positions of expanding contact, the United States (US) and the People's Republic of China (PRC). The value systems of the cultures are traced from their transference to the young of the cultures through formal educational systems to their effect on learning and perceptual sets. General implications are then suggested as to the effect of these learning and perceptual sets on the communicator styles of the cultures when meeting in a small task group setting.

Normal phonological development is characterized by phonological processes in preschool children. These processes are sound error patterns, in relation to the adult target, that are expected within the speech of normally developing children. As children grow older, they "outgrow" these developmental errors. Within the black English dialect, speakers may use a combination of these processes and not be considered phonologically impaired within their linguistic community. The purpose of this study was to assess and compare phonological process usage in the speech of lower socioeconomic black and white preschoolers. The APP-R in conjunction with the CAPP was administered to two groups of 15 children to determine if significant differences exist in the usage of phonological processes between the two groups. Group 1 was comprised of 15 black preschoolers from an inner-city preschool program. Group 2 was comprised of 15 white preschoolers from a Headstart program. All children were identified by their respective speech-language pathologist as having normally developing speech for their linguistic community. Data analysis revealed black preschoolers used phonological processes with a higher frequency than white preschoolers. The phonological process usage mean for the black preschoolers was 4.26% (SD = 1.94) and the mean for the white preschoolers was 1.71% (SD = 2.86). Three of the ten basic processes were determined to be significantly different between the two groups, including: consonant sequence omission, strident deviation, and velar deviation. The results were further examined to determine if either group of preschoolers was identified as needing phonological remediation based on their performance on the APP-R. None of the subjects in either group was identified as needing phonological remediation. In conclusion, results indicated black English speaking preschoolers did use significantly more phonological processes in their speech, however, the APP-R did not identify these children as needing phonological remediation. These results demonstrate the APP-R to be an appropriate assessment tool when evaluating the speech of this Portland black English speaking sample.

A disabling condition that is common for many senior adults is hearing impairment. Studies have shown that a substantial number of people who could benefit from amplification choose not to use hearing aid. Often the reasons may be because they have unrealistic expectations of what hearing aids can do. These unrealistic expectations are not necessarily from personal use, but the senior adult is often influenced by the media, acquaintances, or advertisements. The purpose of this study was to determine if a computer program developed with information about hearing aids and their use could be used to influence the expectations senior adults have regarding hearing aids. Thirty - five subjects were involved in this study. Thirty - two subjects were volunteers from Portland First Nazarene Church, two were from a local bank and one was a retired health professional. Seventeen of the subjects were selected to come to Portland State University to view a computer program about hearing aids. The other 18 were part of the control group and did not view the computer program. Ten days following the viewing a questionnaire was mailed to all thirty - five participants. The questions on the questionnaire related the expectations senior adults had about hearing aids in the following areas: cosmetic, acoustics, cost and upkeep, communication benefits, attitudes, acoustics, and comfort. The results were tabulated and percentages calculated. The results of this study indicated that, in general, senior adults have unrealistic expectations in many areas. In some areas such as acoustics, comfort, and ease of use senior adults' expectations seemed to be influenced by the information in the computer program. The information obtained in this study would indicate that senior adults' expectations could be influenced by information they received from a computer program. In many areas, such as the cosmetics, communication benefits, cost and attitudes the information provided by the computer program needs to be further developed and expanded in order for it to influence the expectations of senior adults about hearing aids.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the survey as a method of assessing client satisfaction with clinical services and to then assess parental satisfaction of clinical services at Portland State University's language clinic using the survey method. The survey asked questions regarding the parents' perceived benefits from the clinic, their perception of the skills of the clinicians who served their children, and the parents' perception of the clinical atmosphere. Eighty-five Consumer Satisfaction Surveys were mailed to 81 parents of children receiving services at Portland State University Speech-Language Clinic between the years 1987 and 1994. Eleven surveys were returned, all containing a signed consent letter, representing a 13% rate. Determining the cause behind the poor response rate for this particular survey was not difficult. No surveys were returned from the years 1987 through 1989. The highest percentage of return was from the year 1994 (38% ), indicating that higher response rates were achieved if the client was polled within 1 year of using clinical services. To further substantiate this conclusion, two of the parents contacted by telephone refused to participate in the survey, and gave length of time as the reason behind their refusal. The overall response to the survey was positive, indicating a high rate of satisfaction among the survey respondents with the services provided at the Portland State University Speech-Language clinic.

Much advice has been published in the last 40 years that has attempted to aid speech-language pathologists in choosing language assessment tools (e.g., Danwitz, 1981 & Darley, 1979 ). Questions have arisen about what tests are actually being used in public schools and the reasons for those tests being used over other tests. The data bank of information is minimal in this area as only one study has appeared in the literature in which Wilson, Blackmon, Hall, & Elcholtz, (1991), conducted a State survey of currently used language assessment instruments. The primary research question to be answered was: What methods of language assessment are being used in Oregon? Secondary questions to be answered were: (a) What factors influence the selection and use of the chosen procedures?, (b) What are the dates of development of the tests used most frequently, (c) By what means do the public school clinicians keep themselves current with new trends and information in the field? There were 567 questionnaires mailed out to Oregon Speech-Language Pathologists who worked in the public school setting and served children 4-9 years of age. Of the 297 respondees, only 4 reported not using any formal instruments for language assessment. Results show 9 main standardized tests were used for measuring expressive language by the majority of the respondents. Listed in order of frequency of use, they are: TOLD, EOWPVT, WORD test, CELF, LPT, SPELT, ASSET, TOPS, and the PLS. For receptive language, also in order of frequency of use, the 1 O main tests were as follows: PPVT, TOLD, CELF, TACL, ASSET, BOEHM, PLS, ROWPVT, BRACKEN, and the LPT. Factors that influenced the selection and use of specific tests included: personal experience; ease of administration; time restraints; budgets and availability of tests and district protocols for assessments. Dates of publication, new and revisions, for both the expressive and receptive tests used ranged from 1983 - 1990. At the time of this survey, the main ways that clinicians were keeping themselves current for new tests on the market were word of mouth from associates, inservices on new tests, and reading new information in journals.

This study was part of the Portland Language Development Project. The purpose was to establish reliability for the Goodenough Draw-A-Man Test. Additionally, nonlinguistic cognitive performance scores were correlated with soores from expressive and receptive language test soores. Finally, scores of overall cognitive function and of nonlinguistic cognitive function in children with normally developing language (NL) and with expressive language delay (ELD) were compared. The original group size was 60 children, 30 with ELD at the age of 20 months, and 30 who were a matched control group. These subjects were reevaluated during Kindergarten. The Draw-A-Man Test was administered to assess the subjects' nonlinguistic cognitive functioning. The McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities CMCSA) was administered to assess the subjects' overall cognitive functioning. A free speech sample was analyzed using the Developmental Sentence Scoring (DSS) criteria to assess expressive language skills, and the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales

The purpose of this study was to examine whether or not the method of reading (either aloud or silently) would affect the reading comprehension performance of left hemispheredamaged (LHD) and non-brain-damaged (NBD) subjects across inference levels using the Nelson Reading Skills Test (NRST) (Hanna, Schell, & Schreiner, 1977). The experimental group was comprised of fifteen subjects who had suffered a cerebrovascular accident (CVA) to the left hemisphere of the brain. Subjects were selected after they had demonstrated an adequate level of function on the Short Porch Index of Conununicative Ability (SPICA) (DiSimoni, Keith, & Darley, 1980), to perform the tasks required in this study. Subjects were then randomly assigned to either "left hemispheredamaged aloud reading" or "left hemisphere-damaged silent reading" subgroups. The non-brain-damaged (NBD) control group consisted of fifteen individuals with no known history of neurological impairment. Control group subjects were also randomly assigned to either the "non-brain damaged aloud reading" subgroup or the "non-brain damaged silent reading" subgroup. All subjects were administered the revised version of the Nelson Reading Skills Test (NRST) (1977), Form 4 of Level B. NRST test questions can be grouped into three categories representing literal, translational, and high levels of inference. Subjects were required to read five paragraphs and answer thirty-three questions pertaining to the reading material by pointing to the correct answer from a list of four choices. Subjects were allowed to refer back to the paragraph when attempting to answer test questions. Results revealed total NRST performance to be significantly better for NBD subjects. Within both experimental and control groups, no significant difference was found to exist between the test scores of the oral and silent reading subgroups. The research data did not reflect the expected error pattern of most errors occurring on high inference level questions and fewest errors on literal inferences for either group of subjects.