Communication

Phenomenon, Process & Idea

HB MokrosRutgers University

Course 194:694:601--Fall 2005Lecture 1--9/14/05

Communication as Phenomenon Behavior

Talk in conversation Outcome

Good, efficient Intention

Goals and strategies

Communication as Process

Function Informing, influencing, persuading Evocative, relational, phatic, poetic

Transaction Exchange A

BA

BA

B

Reciprocity Interaction

Mutual influence Sequence & Coactivity Attunement

Communication as Idea

Native and Privileged Theory Everyday commonsense understanding

Scholarly and institutional understanding

Implicit and Explicit Worldviews Invisible, possibly recoverable analytically

Stated, public, referred to, known

Fundamental Techniques of Communication Primary Processes

communicative in character observable in all societies and cultures

Evolved universals

Secondary Techniques facilitate the process of communication inventions of sophisticated civilizations

Technological innovations

Primary Processes

LANGUAGE Gesture

imimitationitation

social suggestion

explicit <--------------------------------> implicit

Language

Language, the most explicit primary process:

“consists in every case known to us of an absolutely complete referential apparatus of phonetic symbols which have the property of locating every known social referent, including all the recognized data of perception which the society that is serves carries in its tradition.” (p. 105)

Language, Thought & Reality Edward Sapir, Ph.D. (Columbia, 1910) Franz Boas, Mentor

from (Physics) “Why is seawater green?” to (Anthropology) The worldview of the native

The Boasian Tradition Cultural Relativism

The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis Linguistic Relativism (Language & Thought)

Language & Culture [(in?) communication]

“whatever may be the shortcomings of primitive society judged from the vantage point of civilization, its language inevitably forms as sure, complete, and potentially creative an apparatus of referential symbolism as the most sophisticated language we know.” (p. 105)

Signs (ala Charles Peirce)

Signs and their Objects Icon (resemblance: “Bang”) Index (pointing: “here/there”, “a/the”

Shifters (speech situation: I/you) Symbol (conventional: “blue sky”)

Gesture I Nonverbal communication

Hand, head, body & eye movements Voice qualities: Intonation, Rasp, Silence

Paralanguage (Trager & Smith, 1958) Use of Space/Time

Proxemics/Coenetics

Gesture II: From reference to inference

Stand in for words Emblems, Pointing

Coordinated with talk (& thought as action) Reinforcing of talk (rhythm) Conceptual expression (spatial expression)

In contradiction to talk (veracity) “do you love me” “you know I do” (watching TV, no eye contact)

Exposing to view (psychological self) Blush, raspy voice, tremble

Overt Imitation Primary condition for social consolidation

taken for granted customs and habits, conformity shared practices, ordinary, commonsense

Not communicative in intent communicative in action, copying, mimesis sameness of custom &habit, identity, “us”

Rationalized through language “that’s just the way it is, that’s what we do” “we don’t put our feet on the coffee table”

Social Suggestion Meaning through difference

Proper/Improper Order/Chaos Same/Different Us/Them Good/Bad

Social Distance & Communication Style

“the smaller the circle and the more complex the understandings already arrived at within it, the more economical can the act of communication afford to become.” (p. 106)

Relationships as Contexts of Communication Style

Strangers---Intimates

Explicit---Implicit

Propositional---Presupposed

Secondary Processes Facilitation of Primary Processes

Language Transfers writing, Morse code

Signaling in Technical Situations signal lights, smoke signals (yes/no)

Extending Opportunity for railroad, airplane, radio, telephone

The Radius of Communication Traditional societies

Geographically bounded fashion/taste, culture, language

Modern civilizations Geographic diffusion of fashion/taste, culture,

language Progressive increase historically of the reach

of communication Erosion of Space/Time

Impact of the Proliferation of Communication Technologies Increased radius of communication

increased sense of global community Decreased importance of geography of

local culture“The weakening of the geographical factor in social organization must in the long run profoundly modify our attitude toward the meaning of personal relations and of social classes and even of nationalities.” (p. 108)

Consequences of the Ease of Communication

Difficulty of containing communication Reply to all, printing off at public printer

Create new obstacles to communication Fire walls

The problem of a good thing“The fear of being too easily understood may, in many cases, be more aptly defined as the fear of being understood by too many--so many, indeed, as to endanger the psychological reality of the image of the enlarged self confronting the not-self.” (p. 108)

Dream of Communication Communication Problem

Translation and Transfer of Information“On the whole, however, it is rather the obstacles to communication that are felt as annoying or ominous.”

Perceived Solution Intercommunication language for denotive

purposes pure and simple

Dream of Communication II Shared Reality

Mutual Understanding Relational Harmony

Oneness Eternal Return

The Dream of Communication and the Product of its Desire

the erasure

of

DIFFERENCDIFFERENCEE