This book investigates and analyzes the way in which factors such as communication apprehension, self-perceived communicative competence and group dynamics influence the communicative behavior of a foreign-language learner. It also focuses on interpersonal communication, group communication and public speaking. Using selected models it characterizes and analyzes all types of communication with reference to communication in the language classroom, with a particular emphasis on the foreign-language context. The author also presents some conclusions and implications for both language teachers and language learners, as well as offering suggestions for further research in the field of classroom communication. The results of the study serve as a point of reference for teachers interested in the construct of willingness to communicate and other communication variables related to the issue of communication in a foreign language. The work also raises teachers' awareness of individual learner differences in the context of communication in the foreign-language classroom.

The role of social context in the various stages of learning to read and write is an important key to understanding literacy, and is the chief organizing theme of this book. 12 of the world's leading experts on the development of reading and writing skills present a comprehensive and up-to-date overview of the plethora of research and theoretical work in the field, with an emphasis on the comparison between cognitive psychological scholarship and the socio-historical perspective.

This book is the first comprehensive analysis of the free press-fair trial debate over news cameras in the courtroom--one that discusses the issue from a historical, legal, and social scientific perspective. It incorporates the key aspects of the debate in one volume, examining witness privacy and protection, defendant reputation, the purported "educational" benefits of televising trials, the coverage of trials from an entertainment or voyeurisitic perspective, and whether any proposed benefits of televising trials are negated by potential negative costs to the participants involved or the audience in general.

This book covers an approach to conversational informatics which encompasses science and technology for understanding and augmenting conversation in the network age. A major challenge in engineering is to develop a technology for conveying not just messages but also underlying wisdom. Relevant theories and practices in cognitive linguistics and communication science, as well as techniques developed in computational linguistics and artificial intelligence, are discussed.

Sixteenth-century Italy witnessed the rebirth of comedy, tragedy, and tragicomedy in the pastoral mode. Traditionally, we think of comedy and tragedy as remakes of ancient models, and tragicomedy alone as the invention of the moderns. Women, Rhetoric, and Drama in Early Modern Italy suggests that all three genres were, in fact, remarkably new, if dramatists' intriguingly sympathetic portrayals of and sustained investment in women as vibrant and dynamic characters of the early modern stage are taken into account. This study examines the role of rhetoric and gender in early modern Italian drama, in itself and in order to explore its complex interrelationship with the rise of women writers and the role women played in Italian culture and society, while at the same time demonstrating just how closely intertwined history, culture, and dramatic writing are. Author Alexandra Coller focuses on the scripted/erudite plays of the sixteenth and first half of the seventeenth centuries, which, she argues, are indispensable for a balanced view of the history of drama and its place within contemporary literary and women's studies. As this book reveals, the ascendancy of comedy, tragedy, and tragicomedy in the vernacular seems to have been not only inextricably linked to but also dependent on the rise of women as prominent stage characters and, eventually, as authors in their own right.

This book explores the various choices speakers or communicators make when expressing power relations in modern societies. The volume brings together several disciplines, such as linguistics, sociology, communication studies and social psychology, to give insight into how interactants co-construct different aspects of power in their everyday life.

This book offers a comprehensive account of the nature and development of political communication in Africa. In light of the growing number of African states now turning towards democratic rule, as well as the growing utilization of information technologies in Africa, the contributors examine topics such as: the role of social media in politics, strategic political communication, political philosophy and political communication, Habermas in Africa, gender and political communication, image dilemma in Africa, and issues in political communication research in Africa, and identify the frontiers for future research on political communication in Africa.

Translation and interpreting (T/I) and cross-cultural communication activities in the Asia Pacific are unique in that they involve vastly different languages and cultures. Such differences pose challenges for T/I practitioners and researchers as well as scholars of cross-cultural studies. In Translation and Cross-Cultural Communication Studies in the Asia Pacific, Leong Ko and Ping Chen provide a comprehensive and in-depth account of various issues encountered in translation and interpreting activities and cross-cultural communication in the Asia Pacific. The book covers six areas including translation research from the historical perspective and different issues in translation studies; research on literary translation; studies on translation for special purposes; research on interpreting; translation and interpreting training; and research on issues in cross-cultural communication.

Social media such as instant messaging (IM), social networking sites (SNS), blogs and microblogs are an integral part of adolescents' lives in China. Anecdotal evidence reported in the news has suggested that the increasing popularity of social media could make adolescents more vulnerable to being addicted. This exploratory study proposes the concept of "social media addiction" and examines (a) whether social media addiction exists among adolescents in urban China and, if so, who the addicts are, what their symptoms are and to what extent they are addicted; (b) whether sociopsychological traits (e.g., need for affiliation, impression management, narcissism and leisure boredom) can predict social media addiction among adolescents; (c) what gratifications are obtained by adolescents from their use of social media and whether these gratifications can predict social media addiction and (d) to what degree social media addiction influences adolescents' academic performance and social capital.

This study employed quantitative questionnaire surveys among adolescents as the main research method, supplemented by qualitative pre-survey focus groups among adolescents and post-survey in-depth interviews among parents and teachers. Questionnaire surveys were conducted based on a multi-stage cluster sampling of seven middle schools in five urban Chinese cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Xiamen. The final sample consisted of 1,549 adolescents, of whom 90% had used social media. Using Young's classic definition of Internet addiction, 15.6% of participants were classified as social media addicts. The addicted adolescents were often self-absorbed, bored with their leisure time, and good at using manipulation through social media for impression management. Addicts experienced four major social media addiction symptoms: preoccupation, adverse consequences, alleviation of negative emotions and loss of interest in social activities.

The seven social media gratifications identified in this study can be categorized into social, information and entertainment gratifications. Among these, entertainment gratifications had the most power to predict social media addiction, while information gratifications were the least likely to lead to addiction. Furthermore, these gratifications were found to be powerful mediators between the adolescents' sociopsychological traits and social media addiction. Finally, the results also indicated that social media addiction and its symptoms had a significant negative impact on adolescents' academic performance and social capital.

This 19th volume in the series discusses a variety of topics in the field of symbolic interaction.

What's the best way to calm the butterflies before you speak? Should you open your speech with a joke or a story? What should you do if you forget something important? How do you overcome your fear of speaking to large and small groups? Here, in an easy to access format, you'll find techniques to create and deliver a speech for every occasion, overcome pre-speech nerves, avoid tripping over your tongue, and always look and feel like a Unique and Sexy Speaker. You speak in public every day. Whether you're giving a speech, having a conversation, saying your wedding vows, teaching your kids, exhorting your sales team, or talking in your sleep, if someone is listening, you have the opportunity to influence and to inspire. Being influential and inspirational That's very sexy

As an international speaker with more than a dozen years of experience speaking to all kinds of audiences, I can say this is a truly useful collection of tips that can help any speaker rise to the next level. I've read many books for speakers, and this is the one I'd use right before I go on stage or as I fly to my next engagement to remind me of the basics and to get a good, positive outlook thanks to its bite-sized chunks of wisdom. Dan Janal, publicity/marketing/thought leader, and president of PR LEADS. PLUS.com

Secrets of a Unique & Sexy Speaker sets out the rules of speaking in clear, concise, and easy-to-follow steps that take the mystery and fear out of public speaking. This is an indispensable guide for anyone who wants to, or has to, stand before an audience to deliver a message. Rona Arato, author of The Last Train, a Holocaust Story

Lucky me I read Secrets of a Unique & Sexy Speaker before two public appearances, one in front of a hundred or so businesspeople and the other before a board of eighteen. I chose several Speaking Tips to practice and test drive. While much of the book might have you nod in recognition, if you re aware of your own ticks and have received feedback about your speaking, you will as I did benefit enormously from consistently applying these techniques to help you improve. As Marion Claire points out, speaking is a mental as well as physical sport that requires preparation to achieve greater freedom of expression. Thank you, Marion, for your thorough, practical and encouraging guidance. Agnes Mura, MA MCC, global leadership coach, www.AMIcoaches.com

Winner of The American Journalism Historians Association Book of the Year Award, 2015 This study of American public relations history traces evangelicalism to corporate public relations via reform and the church-based temperance movement. It encompasses a leading evangelical of the Second Great Awakening, Rev. Charles Grandison Finney, and some of his predecessors; early reformers at Oberlin College, where Finney spent the second half of his life; leaders of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and the Anti-Saloon League of America; and twentieth-century public relations pioneer Ivy Ledbetter Lee, whose work reflecting religious and business evangelism has not yet been examined. Observations about American public relations history icon P. T. Barnum, whose life and work touched on many of the themes presented here, also are included as thematic bookends. As such, this study cuts a narrow channel through a wide swath of literature and a broad sweep of historical time, from the mid-eighteenth century to the first decades of the twentieth century, to examine the deeper and deliberate strategies for effecting change, for persuading a community of adherents or opponents, or even a single soul to embrace that which an advocate intentionally presented in a particular way for a specific outcome-prescriptions, as it turned out, not only for religious conversion but also for public relations initiatives.

Langauge and Discrimination provides a unique and authoritative study of the linguistic dimension of racial discrimination. Based upon extensive work carried out over many years by the Industrial Language Training Service in the U.K, this illuminating analysis argues that a real understanding of how language functions as a means of indirect racial discrimination must be founded on an expanded view of language which recognises the inseparability of language, culture and meaning. After initially introducing the subject matter of the book and providing an overview of discrimination and language learning, the authors examine the relationship between theory and practice in four main areas: theories of interaction and their application; ethnographic and linguistic analysis of workplace settings; training in communication for white professionals; and language training for adult bilingual workers and job-seekers. Detailed case studies illustrate how theory can be turned into practice if appropriate information, research, development and training and co-ordinated in an integrated response to issues of multi-ethnic communication, discrimination and social justice.

Friendship is an essential part of human experience, involving ideas of love and morality as well as material and pragmatic concerns. Making and having friends is a central aspect of everyday life in all human societies. Yet friendship is often considered of secondary significance in comparison to domains such as kinship, economics and politics. How important are friends in different cultural contexts? What would a study of society viewed through the lens of friendship look like? Does friendship affect the shape of society as much as society moulds friendship? Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and Europe, this volume offers answers to these questions and examines the ideology and practice of friendship as it is embedded in wider social contexts and transformations.

This 21st volume in the series discusses a variety of topics in the field of symbolic interaction. It is divided into three parts, which address: remembering Anselm Strauss; the pragmatic heritage; and, reading self, media and culture.

Why? This question drives scientific inquiry, not least in the social sciences: why war, revolution, racism and inequality? Asking and debating about 'why?', however, is not the prerogative of scholars; social actors, endowed with thought, reflection and speech, do it too. While we all dance to the beat of genes, emotions, identities and habituated norms, we occasionally stop to ask 'why?' The social sciences have been long preoccupied with the ostensibly objective 'why' while sidelining the social, intersubjective 'why?' This book focuses on the latter, analysing the social actors' search for justification in their public, political sphere. Justifications, broadly understood, are answers to why-questions given and debated by social actors. The chapters focus on public justifications. While the contributors do not submit that private encounters addressing why-questions do not matter, they choose to put public encounters addressing these questions under scrutiny. Given the ongoing telecommunications revolution, and new political practices associated with it, these public encounters become increasingly pertinent in our evolving political orders. This book originally published as a special issue in Contemporary Politics.

Genre, Gender, Race, and World Cinema is an innovative anthology that introduces the study of film theory using the four topics of genre, gender, race, and world cinema, to encourage critical discussion. * A major anthology geared towards course use, which covers key concepts in film studies through analysis of important films from American, Asian, European and African cinema * Combines formal, historical, cultural, and theoretical approaches to study * Analyzes how film represents and influences individual and societal constructs of identity * Uses selected readings to introduce inter-textual relations between the readings and the films they discuss * Contains section introductions that map the themes and histories of each topic, and raise theoretical issues specific to each

How can irregular political situations, which impact the lives of millions, become normalized? Specifically, within the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, how can 50 years of Israeli control over the Occupied Territories become accepted within Israeli society as a normal, possibly even banal phenomenon? Conversely, how can such a situation be estranged from daily reality, denied any relation to who "we" are? This volume explores these questions through the lens of two central discourses that dominate the Israeli debate regarding the future of the Occupied Territories: 1) Occupation Normalization Discourse, which portrays Israeli control of the territories as a "normal" part of life; 2) Occupation Estrangement Discourse, which portrays this situation as distant from Israeli reality. In addressing these discourses, the authors develop a new methodological tool, Dialectic Discourse Analysis, which examines discourse as a process of perpetual positing and synthesis of oppositions through the discursive construction, differentiation and mediation of self and other. Through this approach, the authors illustrate that these discourses are dialectically constituted in opposition to one another, feeding off one another, each enabling the other to exist. This dynamic has resulted in a fixed discourse, preventing any progress towards a synthesis of oppositions.

After the introduction of a new economic policy of 1991, India is increasingly portrayed as a big emerging market for consumer goods and for broadcasting and communications services. Policies for telecommunications, computer software and television broadcasting in India have also shifted fundamentally. The book considers communications policies in light of the role of communications in social and economic development and global patterns of trade and investment in communications and services.

Gesture has held a crucial role in cinema since its inception. In the absence of spoken words, early cinema frequently exploited the communicative potential of the gestures of actors. As this book demonstrates, gesture has continued to assume immense importance in film to the present day. This innovative book features essays by leading international scholars working in the fields of cinema, cultural and gender studies, examining modern and contemporary films from a variety of theoretical perspectives. This volume also includes contributions from an esteemed actor, and a world renowned psychologist working in the field of gesture, enabling a pioneering interdisciplinary dialogue around this exciting, emerging field of study. Drawing on philosophy, psychoanalysis and psychology, the essays think through gesture in film from a range of new angles, pointing out both its literal and abstract manifestations. Gesture is analysed in relation to animal/human relations, trauma and testimony, sexual difference, ethics and communitarian politics, through examples from both narrative and documentary cinema. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal for Cultural Research.

This volume provides a critical roadmap through the major historical sources of legal semiotics as we know them today. The history of legal semiotics, now at least a century old, has never been written (a non-event itself pregnant with semiotic possibility). As a consequence, its sources are seldom clearly exposed and, as word, object and meaning change, are sometimes lost. They reach from an English translation of the 1916 inaugural lecture of the first Chair in Legal Significs at the Amsterdam University, via mid 20th century studies on "property" or "contract," to equally fascinating essays on contemporary semiotic problems produced by former students of the Roberta Kevelson Semiotics Roundtable Seminar at Penn State University 2012 and 2013. Together, the materials in this book weave the fabric of semiotics and significs, two names for the unfolding of semiotics in law and legal discourse at least until the second half of the 20th century, and both of which covered a lawyer's focus on sign and meaning in law. The latter is embedded within the cultural imperatives of the civilization that gave these terms meaning and made them an effective tool for the dissection of law, its reconstitution as an instrument to be used by the lawyer to advance the interests of her clients, and for judges as a means to restructure language as a narrative of law whose power could bend behavior to its strictures. Legal semiotics has become an indispensible part of the elite lawyer's toolkit and a fundamental approach to analysis of legal texts. Two previous volumes published in 2011 and 2012 explored the conceptual, methodological and epistemological progress in the field of legal semiotics, the modern forms of semiotics study, and the mechanics of meaning making processes by lawyers. Yet the great lessons of semiotics requires a focus on the origins of the concepts and frameworks that would become contemporary legal semiotics, its origins as an object of the consciousness of meaning making-one whose roots, as lessons for the oracular conversations of law, are expanded in this volume.

As we move further into the 21st century, it is incumbent upon lawyers and law students to understand and manage the complexities of sustainable development. International Development Law: Rule of Law, Human Rights, and Global Finance offers a coherent and systematic overview of the many issues and underlying trends that affect 'international development law' and the underlying legal architecture between developing countries and advanced nations. Professor Sarkar describes how international development works, its shortcomings, its theoretical and practical foundations, along with the prescriptions for the future. The text is structured into two basic parts: the first part deals with the theoretical and philosophic foundations of the subject, and the second part sets forth issues relating to the international financial architecture, namely, international borrowing practices, privatization, and emerging economies. International Development Law provides the reader with new perspectives on the origins of global poverty, identifies legal impediments to sustainable economic growth, and provides a better understanding of the challenges faced by the international community in resolving global policy issues.

This book explores the meaning of home for Cypriot refugees living in London since their island was torn apart by war. Taking an innovative approach, it looks at how spaces, time, social networks and sensory experiences come together as home is constructed. It places refugee narratives at its centre to reveal the agency of those forced to migrate.

Analyzing the relationship between digital technologies and society, this book explores a wide range of complex social issues emerging in a new digital space. It examines both the vexing dilemmmas with a critical eye as well as prompting readers to think constructively and strategically about exciting possibilities.