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IN MEMORIAM

James J. Bradac

Professor of Communication

Santa Barbara

1944—2004

 

 

James J. Bradac, a distinguished professor of communication at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) and an internationally recognized authority on interpersonal communication died unexpectedly, yet peacefully, in his sleep Tuesday, May 25, 2004. He had been diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s Disease (or ALS), April 1987, and despite for the past several years, only having the ability to communicate through advanced technology via eye-blink, he continued to teach, co-edit his Journal, and conduct research. The prognosis was a maximum of six years, so he defied all the odds with his tenacious will to live and work. For his own reflections on living and working with this disease, see his article entitled, “It’s all in your head,” published in the International Communication Association’s (ICA) Newsletter, November 1998. Indeed, he was, as usual, at his desk in UCSB working (with the assistance of one of his devoted carers) the previous day. He was months shy of his 60th birthday and lived in Santa Barbara with, and is survived by, his beloved wife Emilda Jaccard who cared for him all these years devotedly.

 

Bradac came to UCSB in 1980 after 10 years at the University of Iowa and, thereafter, chaired the Communication Department (1984-86) and assisted in inaugurating its now renowned graduate program. He was among the most influential scholars in his field, regarded as having a brilliant mind and this being reflected in his prodigious writings. Besides being an incisive theoretician, a longstanding interest was reflected programmatically over the years in how speakers’ use of various language features could affect the impressions listeners attribute to them. His diverse interests in interpersonal communication covered such topics as politeness, power, deception, self-disclosures and compliance-gaining, to name but a few. As he himself wrote, “I am interested in consequences of language variation…My assumption in all of this work has been that language is attributionally rich, that it carries a large amount of social psychological information about speakers and writers”.

 

Over his career, he published nearly 100 articles (dozens of them in the most prominent journals in communication) and chapters as well as a plethora of deeply moving poems, conceived originally just for Emilda but some of them later (1995) published in book form. He also produced three scholarly volumes, one of which was the seminal Language and Social Knowledge (1982), co-authored with Charles Berger, winning awards in two major communication associations. The most recent of these was the ICA Fellows’ Book Award in 2002, a testimony to the continuing impact this work has had over 20 years. Indeed, during many years where his only mode of communication was the eye-blink software, he supervised empirical studies and averaged over three papers per annum even through to 2004. Bradac, an elected Fellow of the ICA (1991), was also elected by this Association to edit one of its premier journals, Human Communication Research (1989) and, in 1992, became co-editor of the Journal of Language and Social Psychology (JLSP), a role he held of course to his death. In 1994, and in addition to other prestigious research and teaching accolades (including a Top Paper Award at the 2004 ICA convention), he received the ICA’s Outstanding Scholar Award for research in the study of language and social interaction in 1994.

 

To complement these accomplishments, there already exist two named Bradac Awards, one within the Communication Department for the graduate researcher of the year, and the other, awarded biannually at the International Series of Conferences on Language and Social Psychology, for published work by a junior scholar of outstanding promise.

 

Over his career, he was the principal adviser to over 25 graduate students’ theses and dissertations. Besides continuing to mentor students to the last of his days, he also co-taught a graduate class. For his courage, fortitude, and commitment to students under the most trying of circumstances, he received the Academic Senate’s Outstanding Teaching Award in the Social Sciences in 1996. His students were utterly devoted to him, not simply because of his depth and breadth of knowledge, theoretical flair, and personal concern for each one of them, but because he knew how to bring out the best in budding scholars. Indeed, more generally, he never criticized people or their work but, rather, located the good in everything and everybody. These attributes were the very ones he brought to bear in his successful role as co-editor of the JLSP, and one which served subcommittees very well. Always thorough and thoughtful, there were many times when his decision letters were both poignant and profound. In this sense, there was no more loved scholar throughout the discipline and, at conventions, myriads of faculty from all over the world would ask after his well-being, year after year.

 

In addition to the above qualities, and his passion for scholarship and creative new ideas, he was a wise counselor. Bradac religiously came to all faculty meetings, even though it was impossible to input them much during the actual ongoing proceedings. Nonetheless, faculty valued his insights, level-headedness, generosity, and prudent approach to issues before and after these events, communicated via e-mail. Not only did he never complain about his physical disabilities and challenges, he always maintained an acute, and often mischievous, sense of humor that was infectious. Indeed, he maintained his impressive sense of dignity to the last, continuing to muse on, and being disturbed, by the political happenings of the day - as he had been all his life.

 

There was an array of extended and moving tributes to Bradac and his work at the ICA annual convention IN May 2004 as there was at the 9th International Conference on Language and Social Psychology, at Penn State University, two months later. His life and achievements were also celebrated with a splendid departmental and university memorial on October 8, 2004. Moves are afoot by the Communication Department to sponsor an annual Bradac Lectureship at UCSB on the theme of “communicating through adversity,” also to be published in the JLSP. The JLSP will also devote a special Issue to work inspired by Bradac (guest edited by Charles Berger) in early 2006, and a Festschrift is being considered, possibly as The Bradac Handbook on Language Attitudes. In one or more of these forums, his vividly intense poetry will interlace the scholarly work presented. Interestingly and typically, he preferred to call these kinds of writings “strange structures” - as he felt the label poetry “…carries with it so much baggage”. We offer you one of Jim’s strange structures below these tributes.

 

Bradac touched all he met by his striking demeanor, vibrant personality, and self-professed noble Czech blood; he often (with the appropriate accent) referred to himself as “Count von Bradach”! He will be sorely missed as a model of humanity and professionalism, and has left us an enormously profound and scholarly legacy.

 

Howie Giles

Professor: Communication Department, UCSB

“Face” by James J. Bradac

 

When you see my face through the doorway

     know that it is I whom you see,

     not some abstracted flesh

     detached from our former days of mutual triumph

Atrophy is a word

     denoting a grave need for rebirth of tissue

     hanging ropey

     from a gaunt frame.

Do you recognize this frame?

It is not a reminder for you.

It is not a natural sign of the direction of time’s swift arrow.

It is I,

     who once ran for the sun on a path of golden leaves.

Atrophy is a word

     denoting a slowly dwindling force

     of particular neuronic nets

     in the long, smooth column of the spine.

It is I whom you see,

     who once ran for the sun in a wind that burned my face.