Word retrieval difficulty has been reported as the most common and persistent problem that can be observed in individuals with aphasia. Word frequency effect on the behavioral naming performance has been well documented in normal subjects and individuals with aphasia. However, physiological correlates of word retrieval are relatively unstudied. The current study examined the effect of word frequency on physiological correlates (i.e., heart rate, heart rate variability, and respiratory rate) during a picture naming task. A group of individuals with aphasia (n=7) and a group of healthy elderly (n=38) participated in four different experimental conditions, including rest, counting, high frequency word, and low frequency word conditions, while their cardiovascular and respiratory activity were measured throughout the experimental session. Physiological parameters data indicated that there were significant differences in heart rate and high frequency power of heart rate variability while participants were engaged in speech and/or language tasks, for both groups. In addition, there were significant differences in low frequency power of heart rate variability in the group with aphasia. However, no significant difference in respiratory rate was revealed. Additionally, no significant difference was found in physiological parameters between the healthy group and the group with aphasia. For the healthy group, there were significant differences in naming accuracy and latency between two sets of words. A significant positive correlation between naming accuracy and word frequency and a significant negative correlation between naming latency and word frequency were revealed. For the group with aphasia, only a significant negative correlation between naming latency and word frequency was revealed. There were significant differences in naming accuracy and latency between two groups. Additionally, difficulty and stress ratings were obtained from each participant after counting and two naming conditions. Results revealed parallel patterns between subjective perceived stress level and cardiovascular responses. Taken together, word frequency influenced behavioral naming performance in both groups, and it seemed that word frequency effect was not enough to induce significant changes in cardiovascular and respiratory responses. / A Dissertation submitted to the School of Communication Science and Disorders in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2011. / June 29, 2011. / Respiratory Rate, Heart Rate Variability, Word Retrieval, Aphasia, Heart Rate / Includes bibliographical references. / Julie A. G. Stierwalt, Professor Directing Dissertation; Leonard L. LaPointe, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Michael Kaschak, University Representative; Joanne P. Lasker, Committee Member.

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While more and more people choose to give online dating a try and the representations of online dating in popular culture are increasing, a stigma associated with the act of going online to find love still lingers. The purpose of this dissertation is to look at people who use online dating services in order to explore how this group of people makes meaning from their experience with online dating, particularly how they negotiate the stigma of online dating. Using Goffman's theories on self-presentation and stigma, 200 recent posts to a website called eDateReview.com were inductively analyzed in order to answer two questions: (1) what rules for e-dating are present in the discourse on eDateReview, and (2) how do posters to the site engage issues of stigma in online dating? Analysis found five prominent guidelines for online dating emerged: (1) be honest in your presentation of self; (2) be honest with yourself about your successes and/or failures; (3) to be successful you have to put in the effort; (4) keep an open mind; (5) accept your own limitations. In regard to online daters' approach to stigma, the ideas that stigma is cumulative, there is a hierarchy at work when managing stigmas, and a general language of distrust towards online dating emerged. Findings indicate that an increased use of technology is changing how people find and manage personal relationships. These changes are met with both skepticism and distrust creating a need for online daters to redefine through discourse what it means to be an online dater. Through the discourse on eDateReview.com online daters attempt to reaffirm a positive identity for themselves that they can present to others in order to maintain a consistent self image in light of the stigma associated with online dating.

Recent scholarship on hate speech employs externally conceived, purportedly universal definitions to identify hate speech in society. In comparison, the present dissertation is concerned with local cultural conceptions of hate speech (gyülöletbeszéd) active in the communicative practices of a specific speech community, among Hungarian public speakers. Instead of promoting his own preconceived understanding of hate speech, the author relies on the ethnography of communication (as conceived by Hymes and further advanced by Philipsen, Carbaugh, and others) and cultural discourse analytic methodology developed by Carbaugh and his associates to investigate how Hungarians use 'hate speech' to routinely mark a type of talk that is significant to them. 'Hate speech' is approached as a cultural term for communicative action. Analyses are applied to a corpus of Hungarian language data derived principally from broadcast discussions of 'hate speech' and, secondarily, from participant observations, ethnographic interviews, the print media, political cartoons, parliamentary committee transcripts, and literary texts. ^ The author (1) investigates what types of communicative conduct cultural members mark with the term 'hate speech,' (2) describes uses of the term in situated interaction and the enactments of conduct the term is routinely applied to, (3) analyzes the forms of communication the use of the term occasions, and (4) interprets communal meanings active in such use, with special attention to meanings about personhood, sociation, and communication. It is found that the meaning of 'hate speech' is hotly contested in the context of Hungarian social and political transformation. From the analyses, 'hate speech' emerges as a type of communication marked by a certain mode, tone, degree of code structuring and efficaciousness. Hungarian public discourse pits three types of moral systems against one another, all of which imply distinct models of personhood and sociation, make sense of 'hate speech' as a violation of communal norms in different ways, and propose divergent sanctions against 'hate speech.' Broadcast metadiscourses and allegations of 'hate speech' are shown to function as sites of the cultural contestation. The dissertation features recommendations for informed communicative practice and potential directions for future research. ^ Keywords. Hate speech, moral discourse, political discourse, public discourse, cultural discourse, metadiscourse, allegations, term for talk, communication, communicative action, ethnography.^

The dissertation provides a comparative investigation of two Social Constructionist methodological perspectives, Theory of Coordinated Management of Meaning by Vernon E. Cronen and W. Barnett Pearce and Rhetorical-Responsive perspective by John Shotter. The emphasis of the investigation is on the methodological abilities of both perspectives to critically describe the way people identify themselves in their languaged social action, to enhance the public critical voice and to facilitate social change. The investigation is based on the case study that features communicative practices and activities of the Labour Party leadership during the 1992 General Election campaign as portrayed in a dramatic play by David Hare “The Absence of War”. ^

The major purpose of this work is to extend a general theory of interpersonal communication recently articulated by Vernon Cronen and W. Barnett Pearce, known as "The Coordinated Management of Meaning." The nature of this extension is to revise the models of that theory so that it might better represent and explain the generation of interpersonal logics of action. Toward this end, the present paper (1) describes a heuristic model of the complexities and flexibilities of persons' rules for meaning and action, (2) offers a revised measurement model for the determination of interpersonal logical necessities, (3) articulates a more complex view of the dimensions of temporal perspectives than has been previously described and (4) suggests alternative explanations for the interpersonal generation of unwanted but repetitive dyadic conversations. To explore these several theoretical revisions this paper also reports on case studies of five dyads who reported having experienced such unwanted and repetitive patterns. The findings of this exploratory study generally support each of the heuristic theoretical extensions developed in this paper.

This dissertation addresses the issue of change in problematic family interaction. The main purpose is to integrate a systemic model of family therapy (the Milan model) with a systemic theory of human communication (the Coordinated Management of Meaning Theory, or CMM). The argument advanced suggests that CMM theory, which has developed within a research tradition, might aid in understanding the therapeutic process; particularly the therapeutic task of implimenting change using the Milan method. Consistent with this focus, it is argued that a theory which emphasizes the reflexive relationship between the creation of a system and acting within that system provides an elegant and sophisticated method for examining dynamic family systems. This reflexive feature of socially created systems, however, is also what makes the study of and intervention in human systems problematic and complicates explanations of change. In the following chapters, the concept of structuration is used to describe the reflexivity inherent in all human systems. Structuration refers to the mutual dependence of structure and agency and is a concept that both the Milan model and CMM theory embrace. In the second chapter, the Milan model of family therapy and CMM theory are presented. The discussion highlights the focus on reflexive features of human systems. It is argued that the integration of CMM theory and the Milan model allows for a different view of change--a view highlighting the creative and purposive nature of actors. The chapter concludes with a rationale for such an integration. In Chapter III a case study is presented. This case describes an initial, qualitative attempt to apply CMM theory to a Milan style therapy session. This chapter provides an initial justification for the exploratory research proposed in Chapter IV. It suggests that successful therapy is therapy that moves family members from systems in which they see their behaviors as prefigured or influenced by higher level constructions to systems characterized by intentional behavior. . . . (Author's abstract exceeds stipulated maximum length. Discontinued here with permission of author.) UMI

Black women are frequently overlooked in research into black or women's communication. Researchers often tacitly assume that all blacks speak alike or that all women speak alike; thus, they have rarely focused on social class or gender differences among speakers of the Black English Vernacular (BEV) or on cultural differences among female speakers. In addition, researchers have given greater attention to identifying features of the phonology, lexicon, grammar, syntax, and speech events which characterize the BEV and "women's language" than to speakers' variable use of those features in response to different situational contexts. The present study focuses on college-educated, middle class black women's alternation between the BEV and Mainstream American English (MAE) dialects and between "female" and "male" or "neutral" registers in response to changes in the race (culture) or gender of their conversational partners. Two black women friends and two white women friends participated in two separate sets of three informal conversations with acquaintances of their own choosing. Each pair of participants talked first with two women of their own race, second with two women of the other race, and third with two men of their own race. Conversations concerned their personal experiences growing up as blacks and/or women in the United States and contemporary male-female relationships. It was found that: (1) black participants code-switched between BEV and MAE; (2) black participants varied some BEV features according to their conversational partners' race, others according to their gender; (3) black participants used features described in the literature as characteristic of women's speech; (4) both black and white participants varied their use of women's speech features in much the same manner; (5) all participants exhibited individual code-switching styles.

This was a descriptive cross-sectional study of characteristics of Hispanic children identified as communication disordered. Subjects were seventy-three randomly sampled Hispanic children within the ages of three to twelve, with comparison groups of Anglos (n = 24) and Blacks (n = 28). The subjects were sampled from the population of communication disordered students in a large metropolitan school district in the southwest. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected from student program folders. Areas studied included district policies and procedures, criteria for referral, incidence of communication disorders, characteristics of students, and instructional interventions. Profiles of speech and language disordered Hispanics were developed and implications for diagnosticians and school personnel were deduced. Major findings of this study included: (1) Special education policies and procedures for identification, assessment, placement and intervention did not address the unique characteristics of linguistically/culturally different children. (2) Hispanic children identified and served as communication disordered displayed characteristics typical of second language learners rather than communication disordered students. (3) Hispanics from Spanish-only, English-only, and dual language homes made the same articulation errors but these occurred with different frequencies across these groups. (4) Interventions for all children labeled communication disordered were implemented in English regardless of the children's linguistic background and characteristics. (5) Although the district had a significant percent (45%) of bilingual speech/language therapists, therapy interventions were provided only in English. (6) Language dominance and proficiency assessments were not routinely administered by speech/language pathologists. (7) The majority of the subjects were provided therapy for articulation disorders.

The political cartoon medium has existed for thousands of years. Its ability to simplify and crystallize complex ideas across a variety of situations has played a significant part in how the public responds to political ideas, issues, and images. The purpose of this study is to examine the rhetoric of political cartoons, with particular emphasis on cartoons from the 1984 Presidential campaign. After a brief discussion of the literature available on political cartoons, the study analyzes the specific techniques involved in creating effective cartoons. Consideration is given to the key components isolated by the cartoonists themselves, style and message, to the interaction of the visual and verbal aspects of the medium, and to the resources artists draw from to create their ideas. Moving toward a more specific theoretical understanding of these visual political missives, the rhetorical method then examines the master trope of synecdoche and its use in political cartoons. Four aspects of synecdoche prove useful to this examination: naming, associational clusters, scapegoating, and foreshadowing. Together, these aspects help to explain how this rhetorical trope--highlighting a part-to-whole and a whole-to-part relationship--serves to draw connections between certain images, and how these images may work to create vivid impressions for the viewer. Analysis of the 1984 Presidential campaign, including specific candidates, issues, and the campaign process itself, is incorporated throughout the larger discussion of theoretical and pragmatic foundations of the medium. Names and clusters of images associated with Ronald Reagan, Walter Mondale, Jesse Jackson, Gary Hart, Geraldine Ferraro and others, are detailed, along with more general practices of scapegoating and foreshadowing participants and events of the campaign. Drawing upon these practical and theoretical bases for understanding how political cartoons work, implications for the role of political cartoons in shaping perceptions of the political process are discussed. The powerful images available to cartoonists allow these artists to crystallize, legitimate, debunk and mythologize parts of the political process. Analysis of this shaping process offers interesting insights into both visual symbolism and the political system itself.