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