A Cultural Approach To Interpersonal Communication

Featuring several all-new chapters, revisions, and updates, the Second Edition of A Cultural Approach to Interpersonal Communication presents an interdisciplinary collection of key readings that explore how interpersonal communication is socially and culturally mediated. Includes key readings from the fields of cultural and linguistic anthropology, sociolinguistics, and communication studies Features new chapters that focus on digital media Offers new introductory chapters and an expanded toolkit of concepts that students may draw on to link culture, communication, and community Expands the Ethnographer’s Toolkit to include an introduction to basic concepts followed by a range of ethnographic case studies

This book takes a cultural approach to relationships: the cultures, communities and groups we live in to shape our interpersonal communication, relationships and identities. In each of these contexts, power relations shape how interactions occur and it is through the lens of culture that we can most clearly see how power works in our lives and our relationships. A cultural approach to interpersonal communication also is important because in today’s globalized world, we no longer live in isolated communities; we live in multicultural societies. Each of us needs to understand how to navigate in a heterogeneous world; to do that we need to understand how others feel and how others communicate. In this way we may come to understand our own values and beliefs better. Sharing power and using our cognitive abilities to understand the changing world we live in may help us live more sustainable, more ethical and happier lives.

Concern with various matters related to humans as they communicate has led to an increase in both research and theorizing during the second half of the 20th century. As a matter of fact, so many scholars and so many disciplines have become involved in this process that it is virtually impossible to understand and appreciate all that has been accomplished so far. This book focuses on one important aspect of human sense-making -- theory building -- and strives to clarify the thesis that theories do not develop in some sort of social, intellectual, or cultural vacuum. They are necessarily the products of specific times, insights, and mindsets. Theories dealing with the process of communication, or communicating, are tied to socio-cultural value systems and historic factors that influence individuals in ways often inadequately understood by those who use them. The process-orientation of this book inevitably leads to an emphasis on the perceptions of human beings. Thus, the focus shifts from the subject or area called "communication" to the act of communicating. Finally, this volume offers insight into how the process of human sense-making has evolved in those academic fields commonly identified as communication, rhetoric, speech communication or speech, within specific socio-cultural settings.

The authors examine the theoretical influence of culture on interpersonal communication. They provide a framework for guiding future, and for interpreting past, research in the field. Because cross-cultural comparisons of interpersonal communication must be theoretically based, culture must be treated as a variable in research. This concept is presented in the first two chapters and then applied to specific areas of research. Previous research is reinterpreted in the light of this concept, and explanations are provided on how culture has influenced specific areas such as situational factors, verbal and nonverbal communication styles, interpersonal and intergroup relationships.

Designed for hybrid approaches to the course, this exciting new text provides an introduction to communication theory, interpersonal communication, and public communication and culture through the lens of contemporary critical theory. By situating communication concepts and theories within contemporary and engaging cultural scenes, the book is much more than a survey of ideas—it demonstrates the power of communication in our everyday lives.

Long before they can make any sounds approaching language, infants can share in communication, though what this means is the subject of much scrutiny. This 1979 volume deliberately draws on people whose different backgrounds have brought them to explore questions that have a bearing on communication in this earliest phase of human infancy. This is, then, as Dr Bullowa says in her introduction, primarily a book about 'how scientists go about finding out how infants and adults communicate with one another'. It is nowhere dogmatic; contributors have all been encouraged to say why they came to do the research reported, how they set about it and what they discovered. Dr Bullowa herself provides a useful introduction which makes its own substantial contribution, while surveying the broad context of the particular research, discussing some of the themes that recur in the book and relating them to the wider literature.

This handbook brings together 26 ethnographic research reports from around the world about communication. The studies explore 13 languages from 17 countries across 6 continents. Together, the studies examine, through cultural analyses, communication practices in cross-cultural perspective. In doing so, and as a global community of scholars, the studies explore the diversity in ways communication is understood around the world, examine specific cultural traditions in the study of communication, and thus inform readers about the range of ways communication is understood around the world. Some of the communication practices explored include complaining, hate speech, irreverence, respect, and uses of the mobile phone. The focus of the handbook, however, is dual in that it brings into view both communication as an academic discipline and its use to unveil culturally situated practices. By attending to communication in these ways, as a discipline and a specific practice, the handbook is focused on, and will be an authoritative resource for understanding communication in cross-cultural perspective. Designed at the nexus of various intellectual traditions such as the ethnography of communication, linguistic ethnography, and cultural approaches to discourse, the handbook employs, then, a general approach which, when used, understands communication in its particular cultural scenes and communities.