Haslett - Communication : Strategic Action in Context.

COMMUNICATION:

S trategic A ction in C ontext

COMMUNICATION

A series of volumes edited by:

Dolf Zillmann and Jennings Bryant

ZILLMANN and BRYANT Selective Exposure to Communication

BEVILLE Audience Ratings: Radio, Television, and Cable

BRYANT and ZILLMANN Perspectives on Media Effects

GOLDSTEIN Reporting Science: The Case of Aggression

ELLIS and DONOHUE Contemporary Issues in Language and Discourse Processes

WINETT Information and Behavior: Systems of Influence

HUESMANN and ERON Television and the Aggressive Child: A Cross-National Comparison

GUNTER Poor Reception: Miscomprehension and Forgetting of Broadcast News

RODDA and GROVE Language, Cognition, and Deafness

HASLETT Communication: Strategic Action in Context

DONOHEW, SYPHER, and HIGGINS Communication, Social Cognition, and Affect

Olasky Corporate Public Relations and Private Enterprise: A New Historical Perspective

Beth Haslett

University of Delaware

COMMUNICATION:

S trategic A ction in C ontext

Copyright 1987 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by photostat, microform, retrieval system, or any other means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

First published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers

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Mahwah, New Jersey 07430

Reprinted 2008 by Routledge

Routledge

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New York, NY 10016

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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Haslett, Beth.

Communication, strategic action in context.

(Communication)

Bibliography: p.

Includes indexes.

1. Communication. 2. Pragmatics. I. Title. II. Series: Communication (Hillsdale, N.J.)

P91.H375 1987 401.9 86-32806

ISBN 0-89859-871-0

To My Parents,

Clifford W. Bonniwell and Edna Stoeckmann Bonniwell and My Family,

David, Heidi and Erik

This book attempts to outline a descriptively adequate basis for the study of human communication. It does so by advocating a pragmatic approach to communication, an approach based on the study of language use in context. This approach provides a basis for integrating the study of verbal communication across diverse settings, tasks, and participants. In addition, this approach may provide a basis for studying nonverbal communication as well because many scholars suggest that nonverbal communication is organized like verbal communication and that both communicative systems complement one another. A pragmatic approach thus offers a perspective through which an integrated study of human communication processes is possible. However, pragmatics, as an approach to the study of human communication, is distinct from pragmatics as a sub-area of linguistics.

As such, this book is broad in its scope and goals. It covers work on verbal communication in many disciplines, and represents a variety of underlying assumptions and methods of analysis. However, as I argue in , important common assumptions underlie research on pragmatics and it is this convergence, I believe, that offers the promise for an integrated study of human communication.

A promising convergence is also occurring within the social sciences. The convergence of concepts, assumptions, and methods from multiple disciplines is an exciting intellectual phenomenon. Some of this convergence is due to a sense of crisis in the social sciences; increasing attention is being given to basic reformulations concerning the nature of knowledge itself and concerning the conduct of social science research (Foucault, 1972; Giddens, 1976, 1979, 1982; Kuhn, 1970). Increasingly, scholars are calling for integration of research findings in communication (M. Atkinson, 1981; Duck, 1980; Hinde, 1981) and for the use of multiple methods of analysis.

The possibility of an integrated pragmatic approach to analyze communication, supported by models of social science research emphasizing such integrated approaches, provides strong intellectual support for the synthesis attempted here. The very structure of the book itself is an argument about how communication should be studied: the topics included, and their organization and integration in this book, are meant as a statement about how communicative processes take place.

I have, in some cases, reframed and extended others research to show how their work fits into the analysis of human communication. In all instances, I have tried to remain faithful to the original formulations intended by these scholars. However, I may use their research in ways unintended by them, yet compatible with their original formulations. For example, the work on speech markers has been done primarily in the context of intergroup communication. I have, however, viewed speech markers here as accountability practicesa view, insofar as I can determine, not intended by any of the scholars researching speech markers, but certainly compatible with their views on intergroup communication processes. In addition, this book blends both European and North American scholarship. As such, I hope it will direct readers to additional sources of information, and contribute to the cross-disciplinary sharing of ideas.

The book is divided into three sections. The first section outlines the major approaches to pragmaticsthe structural, functional, and contextual approaches. The next section synthesizes these approaches into an integrated, descriptively adequate basis for the study of human communication. Finally, the third section deals with pragmatic research in the major contexts in which communicative skills are acquired the developmental environment during the first 5 years; the context of interpersonal relationships, and educational settings. Each chapter in this section represents a coherent view of communication research in those areas, although obviously not an exhaustive view.

Each chapter can be read independently and thus stands alone. However, I believe readers will benefit from reading the chapters in the order they are presented. Each chapter leads logically into subsequent chapters and thus contributes to an overall sense of how communication should be analyzed.

Through this book, I wish to present a general view of how verbal communication works and to describe significant influences on communicative processes. At this level of analysis, for example, I want to demonstrate the richness and complexity of contextual influences on communication rather than articulate a fully worked-out model of how a particular aspect of context influences communication. In so doing, and in view of the books scope, comprehensive discussion of every approach has not been possible. Important distinctions among the various approaches that are not critical to the level of analysis undertaken here are not discussed. Briefly put, I am focusing on the underlying themes that permit an overall, integrated pragmatic approach to emergenot on important (yet, from my view, not critical) distinctions among approaches.

Both broadly focused and narrowly focused analyses of communication are needed: I have chosen to do the former, while many scholars choose to do the latter. I believe there is an imbalance between these two alternatives; too much attention has been directed at fully developing views on a particular aspect of communication, and not enough attention paid to how various aspects of communication fit together in the process of humans communicating. I am certainly not suggesting here that we abandon more detailed analyses of specific features of communication, but merely that we place those efforts in the context of a more comprehensive view of communication. Most especially, as I argue in , we need to examine relevant, previously unexplored interrelationships among communicative features.