The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of the communication competence of supervisors upon an employee's job satisfaction. Results obtained supported the 5 hypotheses proposed. Findings indicated the importance of supervisory communication responsiveness in areas of listening, sensitivity, and expression of interest in subordinate's ideas and concerns in ensuring satisfaction with supervision received. Support was also generated for the value of an "open" communication climate where continual feedback and idea exchange interact to produce organizational identification. Significant relationships were found to exist between communication climate and dimensions of the JDI: satisfaction with supervisor, work satisfaction, pay satisfaction, satisfaction with promotion opportunities, satisfaction with coworkers. Finally, communication skills training for supervisors was recommended to animate organizational growth and development.

Modern businesses place a premium on employees' oral communication skills.  Business schools are meant to develop future employees and leaders with the requisite skills for success.  Industry representatives, however, consistently express dissatisfaction with business graduates' oral communication skills.  There appears to remain a gap between business students' oral skills and marketplace demands. Research demonstrates that among many possible factors, oral communication apprehension (OCA) appears a significant contributor to ineffective oral communication. OCA may also significantly impede oral skills development by impacting the core aspects of spiral curriculum, an educational theory aimed at the processes of higher education.  The PRCA-24, the most utilized OCA measurement tool, assesses individuals' trait-like OCA levels across common oral communication settings (e.g., public speaking, interpersonal, group, and meeting) as well as their context (e.g., state) OCA levels within each setting.  This study examines whether OCA is significantly sensitive to situational variables and therefore operates as a state.  If so, acquiring business students' situational OCA may benefit educators as complimentary data to PRCA-24 assessments. This study also examines business and non-business undergraduates' self-reported OCA levels across general public speaking, interpersonal, and group/meeting oral communication settings as well as those in respective high (and low) stakes situations meant to reflect the stress-inducing scenarios they will likely experience on the job after graduation.  Results indicate OCA is significantly sensitive to situational variables (e.g., stakes).  Results are discussed in the framework of providing more relevant measurements of business students' OCA levels to help educators fill the oral skills gap. / Master of Arts

This dissertation proposed and operationalized a theoretically meaningful and practically useful conceptualization of change for three well known communication constructs, namely willingness to communicate (WTC), self-perceived communication competence (SPCC), and communication apprehension (CA). Specifically, this research found that students' WTC and SPCC scores increased linearly during the semester and their CA scores decreased linearly. In addition, results from this dissertation indicated that for all three constructs considerable differences among students existed with respect to both initial levels and subsequent change in levels. These results are important and can advance the theoretical communication research centered around these constructs. In particular, knowledge that the hypothesis of linear change in the constructs received support from empirical data and that variations in students' trajectories of change were recorded, can prompt communication scholars to search for novel theoretical frameworks that can explicate these change processes. Moreover, the findings of this research are also salient for classroom instruction. Specifically, teachers of introductory communication classes can use the results of this study as broad benchmarks that can inform realistic expectations with respect to students' improvement in WTC, SPCC, and/or CA. In addition, this dissertation presented the benefits derived from properly conceptualizing and studying change by means of latent growth modeling, a powerful and versatile data analytic technique. Specifically, employing this methodology offered the opportunity to get detailed information about how changes in one construct are related to changes in the other two constructs and to gain a more in-depth knowledge of the intricate ways in which interlinkages among the constructs change across time. The benefits of this dynamic way to study WTC, SPCC, and CA are readily apparent as it facilitates teachers access to information that can be used to tailoring their activity for a more targeted, efficient, and beneficial instruction.

No description available.

No description available.

This study investigated the intercultural communication competence and intercultural communication apprehension of Chinese international students. Participants in the study consisted of Chinese international students over 18 years old studying at two 4-year public universities in the southeastern United States. The study participants completed 2 online survey questionnaires: the Intercultural Sensitivity Scale (ISS), which measured the degree of intercultural communication competence, and the Personal Report of Intercultural Communication Apprehension (PRICA), which measured the degree of intercultural communication apprehension. The findings of the study indicated a significant relationship between Chinese international students' intercultural communication competence and their intercultural apprehension. Findings also noted that gender, age, number of U.S. friends, and level of education were not factors predicting the participants' degree of intercultural communication competence and intercultural communication apprehension. However, frequency of speaking English outside of the classroom was an important factor indicating differences in the degree of the study participants' intercultural communication competence and intercultural communication apprehension. In addition, the study revealed that the length of time in the United States affected participants' intercultural communication competence but not their intercultural communication apprehension.

No description available.

No description available.

Au Canada, les diplomates de carrière sont mutés à l’étranger tout au long de leur carrière. En raison de la nature intrinsèquement internationale et interculturelle du travail diplomatique, des compétences en communication interculturelle (CCI) sont essentielles aux diplomates. Pourtant, les études consacrées à la CCI et à l'expatriation ont négligé cette population, utilisant plutôt des échantillons de voyageurs, d'expatriés du secteur privé ou d'étudiants en échange universitaire. Partant du principe que les diplomates sont des expatriés particuliers en raison de leur situation spéciale à l’étranger, cette étude a pour objectif de remédier à cette lacune dans la littérature. Utilisant une méthodologie qualitative, cette étude examine les expériences d’affectation à l’étranger de diplomates canadiens à travers l’optique conceptuelle de la CCI. Les données ont été recueillies à travers des entretiens individuels semi-structurés avec douze diplomates canadiens, et analysées selon une approche dialectique combinant les principes de la théorie de la dialectique relationnelle et du postmodernisme. L’analyse a identifié cinq tensions dialectiques, trois au niveau individuel et deux au niveau organisationnel. Ce mémoire contribue à la littérature interculturelle en théorisant la CCI en tant que concept organisationnel, en repensant la compétence en tant que gestion durable de dialectiques et en réfléchissant la CCI sur une échelle de temps de moyen terme. / In Canada, career foreign service employees are posted abroad on a rotational basis throughout their career. Because of the inherently international and intercultural nature of diplomatic work, intercultural communication competenies are essential for diplomats. Yet, studies examining intercultural communication competence (ICC) and expatriation have neglected this population, instead employing samples of sojourners, private sector expatriates or exchange students. Based on the premise that diplomats are particular expatriates because of their special circumstances abroad, this study aims to remedy this gap in the literature. Using qualitative methodology, this study examines the experiences on posting of Canadian diplomats through the conceptual lens of ICC. Data was collected through individual semi-structured interviews with twelve Canadian diplomats on posting, and analyzed through a dialectical approach combining tenets of relational dialectics theory and postmodernism. Analysis identified five dialectical tensions, three which interplayed at the individual level and two which interplayed at the organizational level. This thesis contributes to the intercultural literature by theorizing ICC as an organizational-level construct, by re-thinking competence as the sustainable management of dialectics, and by considering ICC on a meso-time scale.

The present thesis applies the sociolinguistic concepts of politeness and face on interpreting theory and practice. Interpreting is, in its essence, highly face-threatening, which is reflected in codes of ethics adopted by interpreting vocational associations. Having insight into two cultures, interpreters can use their communication competence to preserve the face of their recipients or the speaker. For the Western society, it is natural to protect one's own face in communication; however, such efforts can collide with the endeavour to convey the message faithfully and precisely. The thesis therefore studies the strategies that interpreters apply in face-threatening situations and presents examples of what interpreters do to save face, including such events when face- preserving outweighs conveying the message. There is also a discrepancy between the conventional role of a neutral or passive interpreter as a message conduit and the role of interpreters as active communication participants who take the initiative. By analysing interviews and an online survey, the study demonstrates that many interpreters believe that their role is an active one and their impact on the output of interpreted interactions is significant. Keywords: face, politeness, interpreting, face-preserving strategies,...