Research Projects in Business Communication
Dale Cyphert is currently
working on a number of research projets related to business
communication expectations and practices, cross-cultural rhetorical
theory, corporate citizenship, and business public address.
Graduate or undergraduate students seeking data, access to
business organizations, or an opportunity to collaborate on a current
project should send a current vita to dale.cyphert@uni.edu.
Help Wanted!
Public Speaking in a Second Language Previous research developed a set of suggestions
to mitigate sepeech anxiety and facilitate a speaker's effectiveness
when delivering presentations in a second language. The next step
is to survey second language speakers to validate, expand, or further
develop understanding in this area.
Economic Fluency: Making Meaning with Money
Current work in the Rhetoricity of Economics* points to the
transaction as the medium of rhetorical as well economic exchange.
As such, fluency in the language can be understood as the degree
to which an individual comfortably, meaningfully, and effectively
controls the accepted mechanims (i.e. barter, negotiation, cash, or
market transactions). The process might be interestingly
illustrated and explored by examining the process by which people learn
a "second language" to use foreign currency. Identifying the
demonimations and exchange rate is akin to first year studies in
grammar and vocabulary. Fluencey requires a constellation of
meaning-making tools. What are those tools, and how are they used
to communicate value?
* "The
Rhetoricity of Enterprise,” in Collected
Essays on Rhetoric & Economics, Edward Clift, editor. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press. 2008;“The Rhetoricity of
Enterprise: Commodification, Desire, and Materiality,” presented at the
Plekhanov Russian Academy of Economics, Annual Exchange on Economics Research,
Moscow, May 2008; “Reflections on Materiality:
Sustainable Public Discussion without a Place to Stand” National Communication
Association Public Sphere Studies Seminar, Chicago,
November 2007; “The Rhetorical Enterprise:
Toward a Reintegration of the Moral, Economic and Political Spheres,” presented
to the Rhetorical and Communication Theory Division, National Communication
Association, Chicago, November
2004.
Business Norms of Public Address Comparisons
of survey data suggest that business practitioners and academic
teachers of public speaking describe excellence, eloquence, and even
minimal qualification in substantially different ways. It remains
to be seen whether those differences are a function of different
vocabularies, different standards of performance, or authentically
different rhetorical norms. I have created a tool for on-line evaluations of speeches
that will allow different audiences to assess video clips of
speeches. The next several steps would involve a systematic
investigation of this question.
The Portrayal of Business in Film: Bad Guys, Bad Business, Bad Image Management
For many years, surveys of popular opinion rate business,
and especially corporate business, negatively. A compilation of
U.S. films that include business entitities or business people as
identifiable characters demonstrate a clearly negative image. The
first step is to complete the annotated filmography, but thre is a
whole career's worth of film ciriticsm need to figure out why.