Context

Description

Contributing Traditions

Key Questions

The Communicator

(Chapter 4)

The communicator is a unique individual with particular characteristics, determined partially by genetics. Individuals have complex minds that organize information into attitudes, beliefs, and values, which in sum affect behavior.

The communicator is a person with a conscious sense of identity, a “self” that is developed through interaction. Individuals are positioned in a social fabric of culture and power relations.

Cybernetic Sociopsychological

Sociocultural

Rhetorical

Critical

What mechanisms make a person think and act a certain way?

How does personal identity embody social affiliations and relationships?

What privileges and positions do these identities afford?

The Message

(Chapter 5)

Messages are texts, or organized sets of signs, that have meaning for communicators.

Individuals produce messages strategically to achieve goals.

Messages accomplish social functions that bring people together into relationships of various kinds.

Semiotic

Phenomenological

Sociopsychological

Sociocultural

Rhetorical

How does meaning arise, how is it signified, and how is it understood?

How are messages formed in the mind of communicators?

What do messages achieve?

The Conversation

(Chapter 6)

Conversations consist of individual social behavior.

Conversations are processes in which communicators coordinate, or organize interaction in ways that create coherent patterns of meaning.

Power relations are enacted through the use of language in conversations.

Sociopsychological

Cybernetic

Sociocultural

Rhetorical

Critical

How do individuals behave in social situations?

How do communicators together pattern their interactions, and what gets made in this process?

What are the consequences of conversational forms on the treatment of individuals and groups?

The Relationship

(Chapter 7)

Relationships are defined by patterns of Interactions.

Relationships involve the challenging management of opposing forces.

Good relationships are characterized by a healthy view of self and other.

Cybernetic

Sociopsychological

Cybernetic

Sociocultural

Phenomenological

Rhetorical

How is a relationship structured?

How are relationships dynamic?

What is a healthy relationship?