An estimation of Merleau-Ponty's existential phenomenology applied to rhetoric. (CH)

For most of the 20th century, Roman Jakobson's name will have been synonymous with the definition of communication as a human science, i.e., communicology. Jakobson is the modern source of most of what communication scholars theorize about and practice as human communication, and he will be the source of how communication scholars shall come to…

This paper asks in turn: (1) What is phenomenology? (2) What is a phenomenology of communication? and (3) What is a phenomenology of human communication? The progressive application of the three questions represents an explicit use of the phenomenological method, involving description, reduction and interpretation. The phenomenological reduction…

This paper formulates a semiotic metatheory (theory of change) of human communication, in six analytical steps: First, semiology indicates that the coding function in communication relies on the nature of the signifier and the signified. Second, the nature of coding (as distinct from its function) is best described by social systems theory. Third,…

John Austin's notion of illocutionary force is explored within the context of the speech act in the total speech situation; definitions of locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary acts are reviewed. It is argued that illocutionary acts are performatives that occur within a complete communication situation in which the key element is the…

The paper presents a nontechnical analysis of the philosophical theory of speech acts as a paradigmatic explanation of interpersonal communication. A contrast is drawn between the idea that meaning is "in people" and the speech act theory that meaning is an interpersonal construct. There are nine conditions of interpersonal communication that must…