Work and Workings of Human Communication

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.

• Preface xivCommunication Matters xivThis Book’s Approach xvThis Book’s Topics and Focus xviiBenefits to Students xviiiThe Main Fundamentals of Human Communication xixCommunication among Us Humans vs Communication among Other Creatures xxiiOur Subject Matter xxiiiOur Discipline on the Social Science Side xxviOverview of Contents xxixSection One: Preliminaries 11. Communication Among Animate Creatures, Especially Us Humans 71.1 Incentivizing Communication 81.2 Benefits (and Harms) that Communication Brings about 121.3 Incentivizing Re/actors’ Attention to Communication 141.4 The Inherent Uncertainty before the Fact of What Communication Will Bring about 161.5 How We Humans Make Our Communication Work, or Work Better 201.5.1 The Communicator’s Role in Making Communication Work 201.5.2 The Re/actor’s Role in Making Communication Work 221.6 Human Communication as a Subject Matter within the Social Sciences 231.6.1 The Distinct Communication Part that Our Discipline Studies 251.6.2 The Boundary between Communicating and Other Conduct 261.7 A Sampling of Research on the “Communication Part” 271.7.1 Research on Communicative Items Produced in Re/action to Exigent Conditions 291.7.2 Research on Communicative Items and the Actual Results They Bring about 301.7.3 Research on the Doing of Communication 331.7.4 A Focus on the Communication Part across Open-Endedly-Many Topics 352. The Overall Effectiveness of Human Communication 362.1 Finding Evidence of the Effectiveness of Human Communication 362.1.1 Impressions of Ineffectiveness 372.1.2 Impressions of Effectiveness 372.1.3 The Impossibility of Getting Direct Evidence of Communicator Effectiveness 382.1.4 The Soundness of Indirect Evidence of Effectiveness 402.2 A Sample of Indirect Evidence of the Overall Effectiveness of Human Communication 422.2.1 The Communicative Achievement of a Mundane Event 432.2.2 The Communicative Infrastructure Underlying a Mundane Event 452.2.3 The Communicative Infrastructure Underlying Everything Else 47Reprise of Section One and Overture to Section Two 49Section Two: Fundamentals of Human Communication 513. Human-Made Environments We Create and Participate in Communicatively 573.1 Dual Human-Made Environments 583.1.1 The Motion-Action Distinction 603.1.2 A Modified Body-Mind Dualism 613.2 The Material Environment and Its Objective Realities 633.3 The Interpreted Environment and Its Subjective Realities 653.3.1 The Reality of Subjective Realities 663.3.2 Communication of, and About, Subjective Realities 673.3.3 From Private Subjective Realities to Shared Intersubjective Realities 703.3.4 The Tie between Objective and Subjective Realities: Searle’s Version 733.3.5 The Tie between Objective and Subjective Realities: Garfinkel’s Version 743.3.6 Our Discipline’s Focus on Communication of and About Subjective Realities 753.3.7 The Focus of Other Social Sciences on Subjective Realities 773.3.8 Subjective Realities in Our Lives and Our Communication 784. Our Expressive Means and Communication Media 814.1 Our Expressive Means Are Unrestrictive 824.2 Our Communication Media Are Unrestrictive 844.3 Our Expressive Means Unavoidably Communicate Subjective Realities 854.3.1 The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis: Language, Culture, and Cognition 884.3.2 General Semantics: Language, Reality and Unreality 884.4 Our Communication Media Unavoidably Communicate Subjective Realities 894.4.1 The Medium of Writing: Plato on Its Evils 924.4.2 The Medium of Writing: Walter Ong on Its Cultural and Intellectual Impact 934.4.3 Mass Media vs Internet: Habermas on Dialogue and Democracy 945. Making Communication Work in the Human-Made Environment 955.1 Effortless Ways the Probability Is Increased of Bringing about a Targeted Re/action 965.1.1 Structures 975.1.2 Roles 995.1.3 Norms 995.1.4 Conventionalized Practices and Formulas 1005.1.5 Shared Knowledge and/or Experience (Education) Re: Tasks and Activities 1015.2 Effortful Ways of Increasing the Probability of Bringing about a Targeted Re/action 1025.2.1 Components of Audience Research and Analysis and Their Application 1035.2.2 Methodological Contingencies in Audience Research 1045.2.3 Audience Analysis in a Digital Age 1055.2.4 A Case Study of Mishandling Audience Research and Analysis 105Reprise of Section Two and Overture to Section Three 109Section Three: The Communication Discipline and Its Place in the Social Sciences 1116. The Communication Discipline’s Foundation and Evolution 1156.1 The Discipline’s Roots as Self-Contained and Independent 1166.2 The Modern Discipline’s Expanding Scope 1186.3 The Tradition of Communicator-Centrism and the Linear Model 1226.4 From Monologic to Dialogic: The Collaborative Model 1236.4.1 Collaboration in the Doing of Communication 1236.4.1.1 Overt vs De Facto Collaboration 1266.4.1.2 The Collaborative Model in Ostensibly Monological Situations 1276.4.1.3 Communicator-Centrism in Actually Dialogical Situations 1306.4.2 Collaboration on the Actual Results of Communication 1316.4.2.1 Collaboration on Re/actions among Masses of People 1336.4.2.2 The Collaborative Basis of Human-Made Interpreted Environments 1346.4.2.3 Collaboration On and Through Linkages Among Multiple Communicative Episodes 1357. The Communication Discipline’s Subject Areas 1377.1 The Present: Studying Communication as It Affects People’s Interests and Undertakings 1377.1.1 The US Discipline’s Two Main Professional Associations: NCA and ICA 1387.1.2 Fifty-Seven Subject Area Divisions Across the NCA and ICA (Ca. 2017) 1397.1.3 Common Ground Across Our Subject Area Divisions 1447.1.4 A Rationale for the Discipline’s Current Subject Area Divisions 1447.2 The Future: Studying Communication as the Engine of the Human-Made Environment 1457.2.1 The Relevance of What We Already Study to the Discipline’s Possible Future 1497.2.2 A New Specialization in Research and Theory: Reverse Engineering 1507.2.3 A New Subject Area: The Linking of Independent Communicative Episodes 1518. Positioning the Communication Discipline Among the Social Sciences 1538.1 The Minority Position: Communication is an Interdisciplinary Subject Matter 1568.1.1 The Case against Studying Communication in Any One Discipline 1568.1.2 Four Reasons Why an Interdisciplinary Approach Is Inadequate 1598.1.2.1 Reason One: Communication-Specific Proficiencies and Skills are Variable 1608.1.2.2 Reason Two: Discordant Extra-Communicative Influences Have to Be Reconciled 1618.1.2.3 Reason Three: Extra-Communicative Influences Cannot Be Fully Determinate 1618.1.2.4 Reason Four: Communication Produces What Other Social Sciences Study 1628.2 The Majority Position: The Communication Discipline Is an Independent Social Science 1638.2.1 Past Efforts to Formulate Our Discipline’s Identity and Mission 1648.2.1.1 Formulations Sponsored by the Association of Communication Administrators 1648.2.1.2 A Formulation Published by the National Communication Association 1668.2.2 The Elusiveness of the Communication Part 1688.3 Our Discipline’s Identity and Mission Presently vs in a Possible Future 1718.3.1 Our Discipline’s Identity and Mission Presently 1728.3.2 Our Discipline’s Identity and Mission in a Possible Future 173Reprise of Section Three and Overture to Section Four 177Section Four: Scientific Inquiry in the Social Sciences and in Communication 1799. The Practice of Scientific Inquiry in General 1879.1 The Human Face of Scientific Inquiry 1899.1.1 Personal Expertise 1909.1.2 The Discovery Process 1919.1.3 Scientific Communities 1929.1.4 Normal Science and Paradigm Shifts in Scientific Communities 1939.1.5 The Practical Need for Scientific Communities 1949.1.6 The Epistemological Necessity of Scientific Communities 1979.2 The Presumption of Orderliness on Which All Scientific Inquiry Rests 1989.3 Fact and Theory 20310. Scientific Inquiry in the Social Sciences 20910.1 Social Science vs Physical Science 21010.2. The Problematics of Scientific Inquiry in the Social Sciences 21510.3 Qualitative vs Quantitative Research and Analysis 22210.3.1 The Detachment–Neutrality Problem in Social Science Inquiry 22410.3.2 Methodological Issues that Divide the Qualitative and Quantitative Sides 22510.3.2.1 Concerns about Quantitative Research and Analysis from the Qualitative Side 22610.3.2.2 Concerns about Qualitative Research and Analysis from the Quantitative Side 22710.3.3 The Scientific Community’s Role in Ensuring Sound Research and Theory 22910.3.4 Orderliness Found via Qualitative Research and Analysis 23110.3.4.1 Orderliness in an Action Sequence 23110.3.4.2 Orderliness in the Cultural Valuation of Speaking 23410.3.5 Orderliness Found via Quantitative Research and Analysis 23510.3.5.1 Orderliness in the Geographical Variation of an Interpersonal Action 23610.3.5.2 Orderliness in the Covariation of Communication Practices and Marital Stability 23710.3.6 Orderliness Found via Quantitative Plus Qualitative Research and Analysis 23910.4 The Critical Side vs the Scientific Side of the Social Sciences 24011. Social Scientific Inquiry in the Communication Discipline 24211.1 The Problematics of Social Scientific Inquiry in the Communication Discipline 24311.2 Two Reasons Why the Discipline’s Proliferation of Subject Matters May Be “Natural” 24611.2.1 The Discipline’s Subject Matter Spans Open-Endedly-Many Phenomena 24611.2.2 The Discipline’s Culture Favors a Proliferation of Subject Matters 24711.3 Groundwork Already Laid for the Coalescence of Our Research and Theory 24811.3.1 Theories Related to Exigences that Incentivize the Doing of Communication 24911.3.2 Theories about the Results that Communication Brings about 25111.3.3 Theories Related to the Doing of Communication 25411.4 The Coalescence of Our Research and Theory in a Possible Future 257Reprise of Section Four and This Book 262Bibliography 264Index 270