Dan Alexandru Joita

MCPE2

Theory of communication
Paperwork during semester

Aristotel Rhetoric
Aristotle was the Western worlds first great encyclopedist, writing many treatises
including ones on metaphysics, politics, analytics, logic, physics or natural philosophy, rhetoric,
poetry or dramatic arts, music, mathematics, geometry, biology or zoology, and psychology. He
called himself a midwife of ideas.
Aristotle separated the study of logic into dialectic, as reasoned and intelligent
discussion, and analytic discourse, which tests opinions for logical consistency, proceeding
through deduction to individual cases. This logic established a major premise, a minor premise,
and a conclusion. Logic also includes the process of induction, or individual cases to general
principles. Aristotle did not see politics as an abstract idea, as Plato did, but as principles moving
toward actual cases with the goal of leading humans toward truth, justice, goodness, and
happiness.1
In this context, Aristotle argued that life has to be seen in completeness. His concept of
happiness was essential in his development of metaphysics, psychology, politics, rhetoric, and
poetry, in which he expanded Platos views on ethics and happiness as being the proper topics of
those lines of inquiry and thought.
The Rhetoric opened up the compositional, theoretical, analytic, and critical aspects of
persuasion
throughout Western history, but it was so influential that it has also led many later authors into
viewing rhetoric as a mechanical system. Aristotle himself avoided the dilemma that later
developed by creating an open and systematic approach to persuasion. Beginning his treatise, he
1 Encyclopedia of Communication Theory, Stephen W. Littlejohn Karen A. Foss University of New Mexico, p.104
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contrasted rhetoric as the counterpart of dialectic, both of which he claimed belonged to no

definite science as all individuals engage in examining and submitting ideas to inquiry. Rhetoric
is useful, Aristotle claimed, because truth and justice are naturally stronger than their opposites,
and truth and justice will emerge in the process of offering proofs and telling ones story in
political terms.
Aristotle defined three classes of speeches: future-oriented deliberative speeches, which
argue
what individuals should or should not do; presentoriented epideictic or ceremonial speeches,
praising or condemning individuals and their actions; and past-oriented judicial or forensic
rhetoric, which persuades judges to decide whether an individual has or has not committed a
crime and, if so, what the punishment should be. Aristotle believed that orators should be able to
reason on both sides of a question in order to know the whole state of the case, not to promote
evil, but to know the difference between good and evil. Unlike Plato, however, who believed that
rhetoric itself must lead to moral conclusions, Aristotle argued that rhetoric is neither moral nor
immoral, but amoral, as it is the orator who is responsible for leading audiences toward truth,
justice, goodness, and happiness.2
Modern Theories of Learning
With the development of modern psychology, social scientists began to advance formal
theories of learning. The first influential theory was known as behaviorism. B. F. Skinner and
others propounded a theory that stated that people learned in response to stimuli. In behaviorism,
all human behavior can be considered as responses to external stimuli. When a person is exposed
to an external stimulus, such as reward or punishment, the person becomes conditioned to behave
in ways that will maximize reward and minimize punishment. Another method of learning occurs
when stimuli are present in close proximity to events that are desired or feared (operant
conditioning). In this theory, it is not necessary to know the internal mental states of individuals

2 Encyclopedia of Communication Theory, Stephen W. Littlejohn Karen A. Foss University of New

Mexico, p.105
2

to explain or predict their behavior. Thus, communication functions mainly as a means of

transmitting stimuli.3
Skinners behaviorism was soon criticized, and eventually a cognitive school of learning
emerged.
In this theory, the individual mental state was seen as an important factor in explaining
how people would react to stimuli. This model allowed for more active processing and storing of
information, with individual cognitions seen as important factors in how people would respond
to new information, make sense of it, and process it for future use. Thus, more activity was
assigned to the individual in this model. Moving beyond behaviorism, cognitive approaches have
become extremely important in psychology. As we will see below, many theories of persuasion
(and learning) have relied on a variety of cognitive-based models to explain how information is
processed, retained, and used in persuasion and learning situations.
Thus, the learner is no longer a simple repository for information from an expert; rather,
communication is the fundamental process through which learning is created. Learning may
occur both for teacher and student. This theory recognizes the primacy of communication as the
process through which learning occurs. The approach allows for consideration of different modes
of communication as appropriate to different styles of learning. Whereas behaviorism reduces
communication to simple stimulus-response and cognitivism sees communication as the transfer
of mental contents between individuals, constructivism argues that no reality can emerge without
a communication process; the process is fundamental to what is learned.4

Symbolic Interactionism
Symbolic interactionism, a theory most commonly associated with George Herbert
Mead, has influenced generations of scholars in a number of fields in the humanities and social
sciences. This theory has been especially well received in the field of communication, however,
because it places communication at the forefront of the study of human social existence. Unlike
theories that assume that communication is a simple exchange of messages within preexisting
3 Encyclopedia of Communication Theory, Stephen W. Littlejohn Karen A. Foss University of New Mexico, p.587

4 Idem.
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social frameworks or is a transmission that occurs between two preexisting individuals, symbolic
interactionism contends that selves and communities are created, reimagined, and recreated by
and through communicative processes. As a result, symbolic interactionism as a theoretical
perspective has had a profound impact on the communication field, especially (although not
solely) on qualitative, interpretive scholars in interpersonal communication. This holistic
approach to communication is best understood by examining three basic topics: symbolic
interaction, the relation of meaning and mind, and the nature of selfhood5
Symbolic interactionism is unique in its emphasis upon the primacy of human action
and interaction and in its analysis of social life; it places symbolic interaction at the heart of all
human social existence. According to this view, symbolic interaction, rather than something that
is considered secondary to social formations or individual consciousness, provides the
foundation for each of these. Further, symbolic interactionism rejects the stimulus-response
model of human behavior prominent in many psychological and sociological theories. Human
interaction, according to symbolic interactionism, does not consist of two (or more) actors whose
behavior is related in a series of simple causal chains, where each actors conduct prompts an
immediate and unthinking response from the other. For a symbolic-interactionist, interaction
must instead be understood as a dynamic, evolving process of mutual coordination and role
taking. Each actors conduct cannot be separated from the response of the other, or from the
pattern formed by their interaction as a whole.6
Mead describes this process, at its simplest level, as the conversation of gestures; Mead
notes that this simplest level is most characteristic of animal interaction, as in the case of two
dogs fighting, rather than the typically more complex human action. At its simplest level, an
initial movement in the presence of another person or animal constitutes a gestureit is not a
complete act in itself, but an initial indication of a future action. The other individual responds to
this gesture with one of its own, indicating its future path of action; this second gesture leads the
first actor to respond with another gesture, and so on. What is important in this account is that
each individual draws upon the others gesture (and the future action that it portends) in the
5 Encyclopedia of Communication Theory, Stephen W. Littlejohn Karen A. Foss University of New
Mexico, p.945
6 idem
4

construction of its own; moreover, the others gesture may significantly alter, or even halt, an
actors entire line of action. For a symbolicinteractionist, then, even the most basic interaction is
a process of ongoing mutual orientation rather than a series of stimuli and responses.7
Dramatism and Dramatistic Pentad
Dramatism, or dramaturgy, is an approach taken to understand the uses of symbols in
the social world. This approach is important to communication theory because a primary use of
symbols occurs through language. Such a focus on the symbolic uses of language to influence is
inherently rhetorical. In addition, dramatism seeks to understand the human world as a symbolic
world of drama in which language is a strategic, motivated response to specific situations. As
such, language is viewed as a mode of symbolic action rather than a repository of knowledge,
and the use of language or other symbols to induce cooperation among human beings is the focus
of investigation. To develop the concept of dramatism further, this entry will look at the
contributors to and key assumptions of dramatism and its associated method, the dramatistic
pentad.8
Several assumptions undergird dramatism, the, most important of which is the
understanding of human beings as symbol-using animals. Humans create symbols (language is
the most obvious example of a human symbol system), respond to symbols, and understand their
circumstances through symbols. It is by way of symbols that humans have the unique ability to
conceive of the negative or the absence of something. Symbols function to create and sustain
hierarchies of power and identification among dissimilar groups. Symbols also allow for
incongruities, such as creating the conditions for conflict while simultaneously unifying
individuals to resist conflict. Another assumption is that human interaction can be approached as
a drama, hence the name dramatism. For Burke, the relationship between life and theater is
literal rather than metaphorical. Humans enact real roles on live stages as they attempt to impact

7 Encyclopedia of Communication Theory, Stephen W. Littlejohn Karen A. Foss University of New

Mexico, p.946
8 Encyclopedia of Communication Theory, Stephen W. Littlejohn Karen A. Foss University of New Mexico, p.320

others. These dramas guide the ways that individuals, groups, and organizations conduct their
behaviors. Dramatism also acknowledges that human beings act rather than move.9
The dramatistic pentad is the key model used by critics to analyze human use of
symbols in communication. The pentad is made up of five elements or terms (hence the name
pentad): act, or what was or will be done; scene, or the context of the act that answers the
questions of where and when the act occurred; agent, or who performed the act; agency, or the
way the act was performed; and purpose, or the goal of the act. These five terms answer the
what, where, who, how, and why of human communication. The act serves a pivotal place in the
pentad because human society is fundamentally dramatic or driven by action. Later, Burke
suggested that incipient act, or the first steps toward the act, can substitute for the act in pentadic
analysis. The incipient act recognizes the vital connection between thought and behavior. He also
later added a sixth term, attitude, to further clarify the manner in which the agent approached the
doing of the act.10
Semiotics & Semiology
Semiotics is the study of signs and sign systems. It grew out of two entirely separate
traditions in the early 1900s: Semiology (smiologie in the original French), proposed by
Ferdinand de Saussure, a linguist in Switzerland, as an extension of psychology; and semiotic,
proposed by Charles Sanders Peirce, a philosopher in the United States, as an extension of the
study of logic. The term semiology is still used, though more often in Europe than in the United
States; the term semiotic (singular form) is rarely used; the term of choice in the United States
today is most often semiotics (plural form) in an attempt to consolidate areas of research. Related
terms are semiosis, the process of making and using signs (which
everyone does), and semiotician, someone who performs semiotic analysis (usually assumed to
apply to those with training). The relevance to communication theory is that semiosis is the basic
process of human meaning construction standing at the center of all human communication;

9 idem
10 Encyclopedia of Communication Theory, Stephen W. Littlejohn Karen A. Foss University of New
Mexico, p.321
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semiotics is thus the study of how humans construct meaning for themselves and others, a central
concern for communication scholars.11
Signs
If semiotics is the study of signs and sign systems, then defining each of those terms
provides an obvious beginning point. Signs are the building blocks of semiotics; everything else
rests upon their analysis. Saussure described signs as a duality, each one having two parts: the
signifier, the visible or present component, and the signified, the invisible or tacit component.
This relationship permits references to invisibles (such as processes, emotions, social roles, or
units of time) as well as to concrete elements of the world not currently present (such as a person
or thing). Peirce divided signs into three components: the sign, or representatum; the object, that
to which the representatum refers; and the interpretant, the meaning it conveys (alternatively, the
third part is sometimes understood to be the person making the interpretation). It does not matter
whether signs are viewed as having two or three parts; in either case, there is more than one,
which leaves a gap between the thing and the meaning it conveys. This can lead to
misunderstandings. Polysemy, the fact that one sign can have multiple signifieds or interpretants,
can also lead to miscommunication, for the meaning one person intends may not be the meaning
another understands. This ambiguity can have negative consequences (confusion, anger) or
positive (complexity, leading to the ability of a single sign to convey multiple messages
simultaneously).12
Meaning theories
Although in some ways the question of meaning is as old as symbol use, formalized
inquiry into meaning is a far more recent development in human history. Initial investigations
into the nature of meaning appear in the writings of the ancient Greeks, but it was not until the
late 19th and early 20th centuries that interest in this subject led to the development of multiple
(and competing) theories of meaning. The sudden proliferation of such theories reflects the
increased importance placed upon language and communication during this time period by
11 Encyclopedia of Communication Theory, Stephen W. Littlejohn Karen A. Foss University of New
Mexico, p.874
12 idem
7

scholars across a variety of disciplines. Furthermore, these meaning theories, and the
controversies generated by them, played a central role in the development of the discipline of
communication.13
Semiotics is an approach to questions of meaning that has played a significant role in the
development of communication theory, especially in media studies and in visual communication.
Although there are multiple approaches to and definitions of the field of semiotics, they all share
one central commonality: reframing the study of language and meaning as the study of signs.
This emphasis upon the sign can be traced as far back as St. Augustine of Hippo (in the 4th
century), but its modern formulation is attributable to two late 19th-century figures: Ferdinand de
Saussure and Charles Sanders Peirce. These two thinkers offered strikingly different approaches
to the study of signs, but both agree that correspondence theory offers an inadequate account of
the workings of language.14
Constitutive view of language
John Stewart identifies five ways in which the traditional view of language differs from
the constitutive. First, the former assumes the existence of two worldsthe world of reality and
the world of languagewhile the second asserts that humans can only live in one world, the
world of language. Second, the traditional view analyzes language into parts or structures, while
the constitutive view is more holistic and uses a global interpretive approach to identify how
discourse shapes our understanding of experience. Third, the traditional view believes that words
represent things, that language is a surrogate for reality. In contrast, the constitutive view sees
language as generative, as making things rather than representing those things.15
13 Encyclopedia of Communication Theory, Stephen W. Littlejohn Karen A. Foss University of New
Mexico, p.618
14 Encyclopedia of Communication Theory, Stephen W. Littlejohn Karen A. Foss University of New
Mexico, p.620
15 Encyclopedia of Communication Theory, Stephen W. Littlejohn Karen A. Foss University of New
Mexico, p.588
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Many scholars using the constitutive view are not satisfied to interpret and describe how
language impacts the experience of reality. Observing that language use can create shared
meanings that perpetuate oppressive power arrangements in society, critical scholars move
beyond interpretation to critique. Although they often use particular cases and texts in their
research, most critical discourse scholars acknowledge that powerful ideologies are created in the
interrelationships among texts, a phenomenon identified as intertextuality. Critical scholars are
especially interested in how discourse-more accurately, multiple discourses-depict the world.16
Critical cultural studies, strongly identified with this work, looks at the ways in which
culture is produced in discourse. More importantly, scholars in this tradition are interested in how
more powerful cultural forms come to dominate less powerful ones. The clash of ideologies
occurs in discourse in what Stuart Hall called a theatre of struggle, where groups compete to
have their interests met. For example, feminist critical scholars have examined how a masculine
bias in language affects human relationships, how masculine forms of discourse subvert the
feminine, and how womens discourse has both accommodated and resisted this bias.
Emancipatory in orientation, cultural studies identifies discourses that provide opportunities to
build and rebuild otherwise marginalized ideologies.17
Theories of Interpersonal Communication
Though there are a number of IPC theories that provide different lenses through which to view
communication in relationships, these theories fall into four categories: theories about meaning
in relationships, theories about motives in relationships, theories about messages in relationships,
and theories about movement in relationships.18

16 Encyclopedia of Communication Theory, Stephen W. Littlejohn Karen A. Foss University of New

Mexico, p.589
17 idem
18 Encyclopedia of Communication Theory, Stephen W. Littlejohn Karen A. Foss University of New
Mexico, p.548
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Constructivism is a theoretical framework that attempts to explain why people communicate the
way they do and why some communicators are more successful than others. In the early 1980s,
Jesse Delia and colleagues, building on psychological theories of personal constructs, argued
that peoples communicative choices are influenced by their situational schemas, or mental
maps, of how they should act in a given situation. People with highly developed or complex
maps of a situation and other people tend to have a better understanding of others perspectives
and goals. Those people with complex maps are called cognitively complex. They tend to attach
more meaning to situations and others actions, which enables them to be more person centered
in their communication and to develop messages19
Interpersonal Decepti on Theory
Deception refers to behavior intentionally enacted to mislead another. Interpersonal
deception theory (IDT) is one contemporary communication theory intended to predict and
explain deception in the context of interpersonal interactions. IDT was developed by David
Buller and Judee K. Burgoon to offer an alternative perspective to prevailing psychological
perspectives on deception. Growing out of several decades of research into credibility and
interpersonal communication, it is an interrelated set of assumptions and propositions, or
testable statements, drawing on principles of interpersonal communication to predict and explain
deception in interpersonal interactions. Its scope is thus deception during communication, which
can include face-to-face, public, computer mediated, or virtual communication. To date, over20
experiments have been conducted testing various aspects of IDT. Many, but not all, have
received support.20

Power, Interpersonal

19 idem
20 Encyclopedia of Communication Theory, Stephen W. Littlejohn Karen A. Foss University of New
Mexico, p.551
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There is a large body of research in the area of interpersonal power, but scholars
typically focus on six important issues when examining the definition of interpersonal power.
First, power is the ability to achieve desired goals or outcomes, although power is not always
exercised and may not result in any actual change if a force is pitted against a force of equal
strength.
Second, power is a system property rather than the personal attribute of an individual in
that power and is often the result of social or psychological mechanisms that do not necessarily
surface in overt behavior, but may be manifest in systematic differences between people due to
culturally relevant expectancies.
For example: men are often seen as more powerful than women even though there may
be resources a woman can use to increase her power in a particular context.
Third, power is dynamic rather than static and therefore involves reciprocal causation. In
order to be powerful, another must be powerless, but that status can change over time or even
within a particular interaction.21
Fourth, power is both a perceptual and behavioral phenomenon because power is based
in both structural status differences as well as personality raits. Thus, one must perceive that he
or she is powerful and must also be willing to act accordingly.
Fifth, power is always asymmetrical, although the power of one individual in his or her
sphere may be compensated by another individuals power in an alternate sphere, so power may
be characterized as equalitarian across spheres.
Sixth, power is multidimensional in nature, including sociostructural, interactional, and
outcome components. Although cultural values may have an a priori determination of power, the
interaction itself can change the power dynamic of communicators and also determine the
subsequent behavior. Clearly, power is a complex variable that cannot be easily captured by
researchers.22

21 Encyclopedia of Communication Theory, Stephen W. Littlejohn Karen A. Foss University of New

Mexico, p781
22 Idem
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