The Work and Workings of Human Communication
Description
Written in four sections, The Work and Workings of Human Communication identifies the underlying fundamentals that make our communication distinctively human. These fundamentals are the common ground that tie together the many topics and subject matters covered by the study and discipline of communication. They are also the basis of the unique contribution of the communication discipline to the social sciences.
Professor, researcher and theorist Robert E. Sanders starts by focusing on what is unique about human communication and moves on to an examination of the complexities of scientific inquiry in the social sciences in general and in the communication discipline specifically. At the heart of the matter is the fact that humans are thinking beings who can make choices and therefore are not entirely predictable. This points towards new topics and questions that are likely to arise as the discipline evolves.
Sanders' approach leads to recognition of the fact that communication is at the center of how humans build our ways of life and participate together. By focusing on the underlying fundamentals that give rise to the discipline's topics and subject areas, The Work and Workings of Human Communication encourages students to engage in independent thought about what they want to contribute by:
* Emphasizing the importance of communication in creating, sustaining or changing--and participating in--our ways of life on an interpersonal level and on a societal level
* Recognizing that human communication is inherently collaborative; people affect situations by interacting with others, not acting on others
* Explaining the history, current agendas and possible future of the social science side of the Communication discipline
A perfect resource for new graduate students in introductory communication courses who have an interest in the social science side of the discipline, The Work and Workings of Human Communication is also highly valuable for undergraduate communication and liberal arts students who don't possess a background in the discipline.
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Person
Robert E. Sanders, Ph.D. in Communication from the University of Iowa, has focused his research and theoretical work on details of the way people communicate in social interactions to influence others as a microcosm of the work and workings of human communication, and the underlying communicative competence that supports communicating strategically. He wrote the book Cognitive Foundations of Calculated Speech, co-edited Handbook of Language and Social Interaction, and has authored numerous journal articles and book chapters on language, social interaction, and communicative competence.
Content
Preface xiv
Communication Matters xiv
This Book's Approach xv
This Book's Topics and Focus xvii
Benefits to Students xviii
The Main Fundamentals of Human Communication xix
Communication among Us Humans vs Communication among Other Creatures xxii
Our Subject Matter xxiii
Our Discipline on the Social Science Side xxvi
Overview of Contents xxix
Section One: Preliminaries 1
1. Communication Among Animate Creatures, Especially Us Humans 7
1.1 Incentivizing Communication 8
1.2 Benefits (and Harms) that Communication Brings about 12
1.3 Incentivizing Re/actors' Attention to Communication 14
1.4 The Inherent Uncertainty before the Fact of What Communication Will Bring about 16
1.5 How We Humans Make Our Communication Work, or Work Better 20
1.5.1 The Communicator's Role in Making Communication Work 20
1.5.2 The Re/actor's Role in Making Communication Work 22
1.6 Human Communication as a Subject Matter within the Social Sciences 23
1.6.1 The Distinct Communication Part that Our Discipline Studies 25
1.6.2 The Boundary between Communicating and Other Conduct 26
1.7 A Sampling of Research on the "Communication Part" 27
1.7.1 Research on Communicative Items Produced in Re/action to Exigent Conditions 29
1.7.2 Research on Communicative Items and the Actual Results They Bring about 30
1.7.3 Research on the Doing of Communication 33
1.7.4 A Focus on the Communication Part across Open-Endedly-Many Topics 35
2. The Overall Effectiveness of Human Communication 36
2.1 Finding Evidence of the Effectiveness of Human Communication 36
2.1.1 Impressions of Ineffectiveness 37
2.1.2 Impressions of Effectiveness 37
2.1.3 The Impossibility of Getting Direct Evidence of Communicator Effectiveness 38
2.1.4 The Soundness of Indirect Evidence of Effectiveness 40
2.2 A Sample of Indirect Evidence of the Overall Effectiveness of Human Communication 42
2.2.1 The Communicative Achievement of a Mundane Event 43
2.2.2 The Communicative Infrastructure Underlying a Mundane Event 45
2.2.3 The Communicative Infrastructure Underlying Everything Else 47
Reprise of Section One and Overture to Section Two 49
Section Two: Fundamentals of Human Communication 51
3. Human-Made Environments We Create and Participate in Communicatively 57
3.1 Dual Human-Made Environments 58
3.1.1 The Motion-Action Distinction 60
3.1.2 A Modified Body-Mind Dualism 61
3.2 The Material Environment and Its Objective Realities 63
3.3 The Interpreted Environment and Its Subjective Realities 65
3.3.1 The Reality of Subjective Realities 66
3.3.2 Communication of, and About, Subjective Realities 67
3.3.3 From Private Subjective Realities to Shared Intersubjective Realities 70
3.3.4 The Tie between Objective and Subjective Realities: Searle's Version 73
3.3.5 The Tie between Objective and Subjective Realities: Garfinkel's Version 74
3.3.6 Our Discipline's Focus on Communication of and About Subjective Realities 75
3.3.7 The Focus of Other Social Sciences on Subjective Realities 77
3.3.8 Subjective Realities in Our Lives and Our Communication 78
4. Our Expressive Means and Communication Media 81
4.1 Our Expressive Means Are Unrestrictive 82
4.2 Our Communication Media Are Unrestrictive 84
4.3 Our Expressive Means Unavoidably Communicate Subjective Realities 85
4.3.1 The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis: Language, Culture, and Cognition 88
4.3.2 General Semantics: Language, Reality and Unreality 88
4.4 Our Communication Media Unavoidably Communicate Subjective Realities 89
4.4.1 The Medium of Writing: Plato on Its Evils 92
4.4.2 The Medium of Writing: Walter Ong on Its Cultural and Intellectual Impact 93
4.4.3 Mass Media vs Internet: Habermas on Dialogue and Democracy 94
5. Making Communication Work in the Human-Made Environment 95
5.1 Effortless Ways the Probability Is Increased of Bringing about a Targeted Re/action 96
5.1.1 Structures 97
5.1.2 Roles 99
5.1.3 Norms 99
5.1.4 Conventionalized Practices and Formulas 100
5.1.5 Shared Knowledge and/or Experience (Education) Re: Tasks and Activities 101
5.2 Effortful Ways of Increasing the Probability of Bringing about a Targeted Re/action 102
5.2.1 Components of Audience Research and Analysis and Their Application 103
5.2.2 Methodological Contingencies in Audience Research 104
5.2.3 Audience Analysis in a Digital Age 105
5.2.4 A Case Study of Mishandling Audience Research and Analysis 105
Reprise of Section Two and Overture to Section Three 109
Section Three: The Communication Discipline and Its Place in the Social Sciences 111
6. The Communication Discipline's Foundation and Evolution 115
6.1 The Discipline's Roots as Self-Contained and Independent 116
6.2 The Modern Discipline's Expanding Scope 118
6.3 The Tradition of Communicator-Centrism and the Linear Model 122
6.4 From Monologic to Dialogic: The Collaborative Model 123
6.4.1 Collaboration in the Doing of Communication 123
6.4.1.1 Overt vs De Facto Collaboration 126
6.4.1.2 The Collaborative Model in Ostensibly Monological Situations 127
6.4.1.3 Communicator-Centrism in Actually Dialogical Situations 130
6.4.2 Collaboration on the Actual Results of Communication 131
6.4.2.1 Collaboration on Re/actions among Masses of People 133
6.4.2.2 The Collaborative Basis of Human-Made Interpreted Environments 134
6.4.2.3 Collaboration On and Through Linkages Among Multiple Communicative Episodes 135
7. The Communication Discipline's Subject Areas 137
7.1 The Present: Studying Communication as It Affects People's Interests and Undertakings 137
7.1.1 The US Discipline's Two Main Professional Associations: NCA and ICA 138
7.1.2 Fifty-Seven Subject Area Divisions Across the NCA and ICA (Ca. 2017) 139
7.1.3 Common Ground Across Our Subject Area Divisions 144
7.1.4 A Rationale for the Discipline's Current Subject Area Divisions 144
7.2 The Future: Studying Communication as the Engine of the Human-Made Environment 145
7.2.1 The Relevance of What We Already Study to the Discipline's Possible Future 149
7.2.2 A New Specialization in Research and Theory: Reverse Engineering 150
7.2.3 A New Subject Area: The Linking of Independent Communicative Episodes 151
8. Positioning the Communication Discipline Among the Social Sciences 153
8.1 The Minority Position: Communication is an Interdisciplinary Subject Matter 156
8.1.1 The Case against Studying Communication in Any One Discipline 156
8.1.2 Four Reasons Why an Interdisciplinary Approach Is Inadequate 159
8.1.2.1 Reason One: Communication-Specific Proficiencies and Skills are Variable 160
8.1.2.2 Reason Two: Discordant Extra-Communicative Influences Have to Be Reconciled 161
8.1.2.3 Reason Three: Extra-Communicative Influences Cannot Be Fully Determinate 161
8.1.2.4 Reason Four: Communication Produces What Other Social Sciences Study 162
8.2 The Majority Position: The Communication Discipline Is an Independent Social Science 163
8.2.1 Past Efforts to Formulate Our Discipline's Identity and Mission 164
8.2.1.1 Formulations Sponsored by the Association of Communication Administrators 164
8.2.1.2 A Formulation Published by the National Communication Association 166
8.2.2 The Elusiveness of the Communication Part 168
8.3 Our Discipline's Identity and Mission Presently vs in a Possible Future 171
8.3.1 Our Discipline's Identity and Mission Presently 172
8.3.2 Our Discipline's Identity and Mission in a Possible Future 173
Reprise of Section Three and Overture to Section Four 177
Section Four: Scientific Inquiry in the Social Sciences and in Communication 179
9. The Practice of Scientific Inquiry in General 187
9.1 The Human Face of Scientific Inquiry 189
9.1.1 Personal Expertise 190
9.1.2 The Discovery Process 191
9.1.3 Scientific Communities 192
9.1.4 Normal Science and Paradigm Shifts in Scientific Communities 193
9.1.5 The Practical Need for Scientific Communities 194
9.1.6 The Epistemological Necessity of Scientific Communities 197
9.2 The Presumption of Orderliness on Which All Scientific Inquiry Rests 198
9.3 Fact and Theory 203
10. Scientific Inquiry in the Social Sciences 209
10.1 Social Science vs Physical Science 210
10.2. The Problematics of Scientific Inquiry in the Social Sciences 215
10.3 Qualitative vs Quantitative Research and Analysis 222
10.3.1 The Detachment-Neutrality Problem in Social Science Inquiry 224
10.3.2 Methodological Issues that Divide the Qualitative and Quantitative Sides 225
10.3.2.1 Concerns about Quantitative Research and Analysis from the Qualitative Side 226
10.3.2.2 Concerns about Qualitative Research and Analysis from the Quantitative Side 227
10.3.3 The Scientific Community's Role in Ensuring Sound Research and Theory 229
10.3.4 Orderliness Found via Qualitative Research and Analysis 231
10.3.4.1 Orderliness in an Action Sequence 231
10.3.4.2 Orderliness in the Cultural Valuation of Speaking 234
10.3.5 Orderliness Found via Quantitative Research and Analysis 235
10.3.5.1 Orderliness in the Geographical Variation of an Interpersonal Action 236
10.3.5.2 Orderliness in the Covariation of Communication Practices and Marital Stability 237
10.3.6 Orderliness Found via Quantitative Plus Qualitative Research and Analysis 239
10.4 The Critical Side vs the Scientific Side of the Social Sciences 240
11. Social Scientific Inquiry in the Communication Discipline 242
11.1 The Problematics of Social Scientific Inquiry in the Communication Discipline 243
11.2 Two Reasons Why the Discipline's Proliferation of Subject Matters May Be "Natural" 246
11.2.1 The Discipline's Subject Matter Spans Open-Endedly-Many Phenomena 246
11.2.2 The Discipline's Culture Favors a Proliferation of Subject Matters 247
11.3 Groundwork Already Laid for the Coalescence of Our Research and Theory 248
11.3.1 Theories Related to Exigences that Incentivize the Doing of Communication 249
11.3.2 Theories about the Results that Communication Brings about 251
11.3.3 Theories Related to the Doing of Communication 254
11.4 The Coalescence of Our Research and Theory in a Possible Future 257
Reprise of Section Four and This Book 262
Bibliography 264
Index 270
Preface
Communication Matters
This Book's Approach
This Book's Topics and Focus
Benefits to Students
The Main Fundamentals of Human Communication
Communication among Us Humans vs Communicationamong Other Creatures
Our Subject Matter
Our Discipline on the Social Science Side
Overview of Contents
Communication Matters
In simpler times, children reacted defiantly to others' mean words by chanting "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me." Defiant though that may be, it is patently wrong. Otherwise why react at all, let alone defiantly? Words matter, communication matters, in so many ways that we are still discovering what they are. Few would dispute this, and yet there is a mystery to it. How does that work? Communication after all is mainly done by producing benign sensory phenomena - among us humans, mainly auditory (e.g. speech) and visual (e.g. gestures, images, print). So why should any such thing matter? The basic reason it does is clear, the details of how this works are not (yet).
The basic reason such benign sensory phenomena matter rests on the attention we invariably give to others' actions, whether directly present or mediated, which we detect through the senses and mentally process. Others' actions affect the state of the situation we are in - they define it, affirm it, or change it. On that basis, it matters when someone produces interpretable sounds and sights, benign sensory phenomena though those are, because they add up to an action that affects the state of the situation. And we are usually incentivized to do something about it when someone affects the state of the situation we are in, no matter how momentous or mundane the situation is. Moreover, what action was done depends on what specific sounds and sights were produced or encountered just then. This applies not only to interpersonal situations, but to the cultural, organizational, political, and societal situations in which people find themselves - across the spectrum from momentous (a news report of a public health crisis) to mundane (a friend's criticism of a movie you liked). It is with the knowledge that this is so that people go to the trouble of producing those specific sounds and sights, and attending to them.
That faces us with the question of how this works, for animate creatures in general, and us humans in particular - that specific vocalizations, gestures, etc. in a specific medium and context can affect the state of a situation about which others would then do some specific thing. How it works is a particularly difficult question to answer when it comes to human communication, as this book details. It is a question that calls for scientific inquiry, and it is for the social science side of the Communication discipline to answer it.
This Book's Approach
The usual way of introducing students to the social science side of the Communication discipline is to survey the topics, concepts, theories, and findings in our major subject areas. And there is value in that. Good surveys are informative about the variety and richness of the work we do. But there is a downside. Surveys conceal that there are underlying fundamentals of human communication that cut across those many subject areas, and what they are. These fundamentals are what make our incentives to communicate, our doing of communication, and theresults our communication brings about, distinctively human. They give direction to the questions we ask and topics we address. And they are the glue that binds our many subject areas and research topics together within a single discipline.
And so this book takes a different approach. Rather than a survey, it focuses attention on those fundamentals of human communication; it identifies the main ones, and their upshot for research and theory. Attention to underlying fundamentals clarifies our discipline's identity and mission, and the common ground among the many subject areas the discipline comprises. It also clarifies our discipline's position and distinct contribution among the other social sciences. In addition, based on attention to these fundamentals, this book includes a projection of new topics and questions that await us, ones that open new doors for research and theory, and enhance our discipline's contribution among the other social sciences.
It should be kept in mind that scientific inquiry about the work and workings of human communication is a prominent side of the Communication discipline, but not the whole; there is a humanistic, particularly a critical, side. The common thread on all sides of the discipline is the axiom that communication matters. There is also a common interest in what the empirical realities are. But on the social science side, the main concern is how our communication does matter, how it does work, and is made to work, to bring about the results it does, for good or ill. The focus is on what incentivizes it, what its actual results are, and what specifics of expressive means and communication media make certain results more probable.
On the other side(s) of the discipline, especially the critical side, the concern is how our communication should and should not matter, and should and should not work. One focus is on how people can go about doing communication to bring about positive results - to enable and engage in dialogue, to be reasoned, ethical, etc. Sometimes this is based on a contrast with how people do go about this. Another focus is on the role of communication in the lives of people, groups, and communities, studied through a critical lens on what the empirical realities are. Much attention is given to issues of social justice that are created or remediated through communication - especially the inequities and disenfranchisements of individuals, groups, and communities, but also their empowerment - and what specifics of expressive means and communication media bolster the positives or exacerbate the harms of communication.
The focus of this book on the social science side of the Communication discipline does not dispute the soundness of the interests and concerns of colleagues on the other side(s) of the discipline. But it does not address them either, except where they intersect the social science side. They do intersect when it comes to developing our knowledge of what the empirical realities are of human-made environments, and of the role of communication in creating, sustaining, or changing them. Even so, the social science side is an intellectual enterprise that stands on its own. This book brings the intellectual underpinnings of that enterprise and its subject matter to the surface, and from there, what distinct contribution we make among the other social sciences.
This Book's Topics and Focus
This book interweaves two main topics. One topic is the work and workings of human communication that make it a fit subject for scientific inquiry within an independent discipline, the Communication discipline. The other topic is the history, current agendas, and possible future interests of the social science side of our discipline. The book concludes with attention to how social science inquiry goes about being scientific, and then how our discipline does. This requires special attention because in studying the actions of people, we are studying the actions of self-driving, self-regulating beings - intelligent beings with agency - whose orderliness lies below the empirical surface, and whose predictability is therefore contingent, at best a matter of probabilities. It further complicates matters that we social scientists (and academics in general) are ourselves beings of the kind we study, making the achievement of scientific detachment a particularly thorny matter. This book assumes that such detachment is possible; probably not by individuals at a time, but at least by scientific communities over time.
The main objective in writing this book was to create a resource for socializing and professionalizing graduate students who are headed for a career on the social science side of the Communication discipline - whether a career as a researcher or theorist, or (along with students on other side(s) of the discipline) scholar, teacher, trainer, or professional communicator. The book can be used as a main text, optionally supplemented by primary readings on selected topics; or it can be used in conjunction with more traditional textbooks. In addition, the book's treatment of the work and workings of human communication, and how the Communication discipline has undertaken to examine those, can support the interests of advanced undergraduate students who have elected to concentrate their studies on communication.
Besides the students for whom this book was written, it may have value to academics and professionals in other social sciences in its formulation of the distinct contribution the Communication discipline makes to their own discipline and the other social sciences. And it may also be of interest to those of our colleagues around the world who do not share the US perspective on the discipline's history and scope that is adopted in this book. They may find that the book affords them ways to better link their own interests and perspective on the work and workings of human communication to...
