Robert E. Sanders

The Work and Workings of Human Communication

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

Discover the fundamentals of human communication with this comprehensive and insightful resource

Written in four sections, The Work and Workings of Human Communication identifies the underlying fundamentals that make our communication distinctively human. These fundamentals are the common ground that tie together the many topics and subject matters covered by the study and discipline of communication. They are also the basis of the unique contribution of the communication discipline to the social sciences.

Professor, researcher and theorist Robert E. Sanders starts by focusing on what is unique about human communication and moves on to an examination of the complexities of scientific inquiry in the social sciences in general and in the communication discipline specifically. At the heart of the matter is the fact that humans are thinking beings who can make choices and therefore are not entirely predictable. This points towards new topics and questions that are likely to arise as the discipline evolves.

Sanders' approach leads to recognition of the fact that communication is at the center of how humans build our ways of life and participate together. By focusing on the underlying fundamentals that give rise to the discipline's topics and subject areas, The Work and Workings of Human Communication encourages students to engage in independent thought about what they want to contribute by:
_ Emphasizing the importance of communication in creating, sustaining or changing--and participating in--our ways of life on an interpersonal level and on a societal level
_ Recognizing that human communication is inherently collaborative; people affect situations by interacting with others, not acting on others
_ Explaining the history, current agendas and possible future of the social science side of the Communication discipline

A perfect resource for new graduate students in introductory communication courses who have an interest in the social science side of the discipline, The Work and Workings of Human Communication is also highly valuable for undergraduate communication and liberal arts students who don't possess a background in the discipline.

Produktdetails

• Blackwell Foundations of Communication Theory Series
• Verlag: Wiley & Sons / Wiley-Blackwell
• Artikelnr. des Verlages: 1A119706480
• 1. Auflage
• Seitenzahl: 304
• Erscheinungstermin: 13. April 2021
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 226mm x 150mm x 23mm
• Gewicht: 442g
• ISBN-13: 9781119706489
• ISBN-10: 1119706483
• Artikelnr.: 60159810

Autorenporträt

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.

Inhaltsangabe

Preface xiv

Communication Matters xiv

This Book's Approach xv

This Book's Topics and Focus xvii

Benefits to Students xviii

The Main Fundamentals of Human Communication xix

Communication among Us Humans vs Communication among Other Creatures xxii

Our Subject Matter xxiii

Our Discipline on the Social Science Side xxvi

Overview of Contents xxix

Section One: Preliminaries 1

1. Communication Among Animate Creatures, Especially Us Humans 7

1.1 Incentivizing Communication 8

1.2 Benefits (and Harms) that Communication Brings about 12

1.3 Incentivizing Re/actors' Attention to Communication 14

1.4 The Inherent Uncertainty before the Fact of What Communication Will Bring about 16

1.5 How We Humans Make Our Communication Work, or Work Better 20

1.5.1 The Communicator's Role in Making Communication Work 20

1.5.2 The Re/actor's Role in Making Communication Work 22

1.6 Human Communication as a Subject Matter within the Social Sciences 23

1.6.1 The Distinct Communication Part that Our Discipline Studies 25

1.6.2 The Boundary between Communicating and Other Conduct 26

1.7 A Sampling of Research on the "Communication Part" 27

1.7.1 Research on Communicative Items Produced in Re/action to Exigent Conditions 29

1.7.2 Research on Communicative Items and the Actual Results They Bring about 30

1.7.3 Research on the Doing of Communication 33

1.7.4 A Focus on the Communication Part across Open-Endedly-Many Topics 35

2. The Overall Effectiveness of Human Communication 36

2.1 Finding Evidence of the Effectiveness of Human Communication 36

2.1.1 Impressions of Ineffectiveness 37

2.1.2 Impressions of Effectiveness 37

2.1.3 The Impossibility of Getting Direct Evidence of Communicator Effectiveness 38

2.1.4 The Soundness of Indirect Evidence of Effectiveness 40

2.2 A Sample of Indirect Evidence of the Overall Effectiveness of Human Communication 42

2.2.1 The Communicative Achievement of a Mundane Event 43

2.2.2 The Communicative Infrastructure Underlying a Mundane Event 45

2.2.3 The Communicative Infrastructure Underlying Everything Else 47

Reprise of Section One and Overture to Section Two 49

Section Two: Fundamentals of Human Communication 51

3. Human-Made Environments We Create and Participate in Communicatively 57

3.1 Dual Human-Made Environments 58

3.1.1 The Motion-Action Distinction 60

3.1.2 A Modified Body-Mind Dualism 61

3.2 The Material Environment and Its Objective Realities 63

3.3 The Interpreted Environment and Its Subjective Realities 65

3.3.1 The Reality of Subjective Realities 66

3.3.2 Communication of, and About, Subjective Realities 67

3.3.3 From Private Subjective Realities to Shared Intersubjective Realities 70

3.3.4 The Tie between Objective and Subjective Realities: Searle's Version 73

3.3.5 The Tie between Objective and Subjective Realities: Garfinkel's Version 74

3.3.6 Our Discipline's Focus on Communication of and About Subjective Realities 75

3.3.7 The Focus of Other Social Sciences on Subjective Realities 77

3.3.8 Subjective Realities in Our Lives and Our Communication 78

4. Our Expressive Means and Communication Media 81

4.1 Our Expressive Means Are Unrestrictive 82

4.2 Our Communication Media Are Unrestrictive 84

4.3 Our Expressive Means Unavoidably Communicate Subjective Realities 85

4.3.1 The Sapir-Wh