Working Theory of Communication

Last night I was looking for some old files on some unmarked floppy discs and I came across this paper I wrote in Grad school. I wrote it for a first year communication theory seminar at the end of which we were required to come up with something that synthesized what we had learned or read into one general theory of communication. Most people might find this horribly boring but I reread my 'general theory of communication' last night and I found it interesting, which is to say that I had forgotten all about the project let alone what I had actually come up with. I usually hate rereading my own writing but for some reason I didn't mind this time and I'd like to think that's because I actually had something interesting to say.

Having said that, for those interested here is my working theory of communication, circa December 1999. Feel free to leave comments as the only feedback I've ever gotten on it were limited margin scribblings from Dr. Mike Hazen. I apologize in advance for obscure academic references.

If you clicked to read more I assume you have at least a passing interest in communication or in my writing in general. If you're a student or career academic please respect my work and give credit where credit is due should you feel anything I have to say is worth quoting or using in your on work. Thank you for your interest.

Exploring a New Narrative

“Man is in his actions and practice, as well as in his fictions, essentially a storytelling animal.” Alasdair MacIntyre

In the few years I have been studying communication theory there is one theory that has always appealed to me intuitively. There is something about Walter Fisher’s Narrative Paradigm that strikes a chord and feels right. As we have examined various other theories over the duration of this course I have found myself constantly going back to Fisher and trying to reconcile his paradigm with whatever theory we happened to be examining. By doing this I have noticed a common thread that runs through many communication theories-the notion of shared experience or shared meaning. This paper is an attempt to explain how narrative theory can be seen in other theories, thus establishing narrative as the key to communication. As Alasdair MacIntyre said “I can only answer the question ‘What am I to do?’ if I can answer the prior question ‘Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?’” (216). This theory is an attempt to explain how people communicate through stories and how these stories act as a framework or lense through which all communicative acts are perceived.

Some of my observations may be consistent with what Walter Fisher would say while some may not. While this theory is based in narrative many of the applications and propositions presented are not from Fisher’s work. Rather they are an attempt to apply Fisher’s paradigm to different situations.

Definitions

Narration is “symbolic actions- words and/or deeds- that have sequence and meaning for those who live, create or interpret them” (Fisher 1989 58). For the purpose of variety and aesthetics the term story is used interchangeably with narrative in this paper. One of the keys to this theory is the acceptance of the idea that many terms used by other theories can be replaced with the term narrative. Within the rubric of this theory, terms such as shared experience, common ground and context can all be replaced with narrative. Examples will be given throughout the paper.

Reality is what is. This is the “material reality that works in consistent ordered ways” referred to by Cragan and Shields (1998 66).

Communication is the expression and transmission of thoughts and feelings from a sender to a receiver through symbolic interaction (Wright 1999).

Intent is what is desired. The intentional meaning of a text is the meaning the sender desired to transmit.

A text or artefact is any communicative act. This can range from a TV program to a speech to an utterance to a written manuscript. I will be using the term text to represent the vehicle of communication. If communication were to be thought of as a parasite a text would be the host.

Homo narrans is a term used by Walter Fisher to define humans as story telling animals. According to Fisher the Homo narrans metaphor is an extension of Burke’s metaphor of “man” being a symbol-using animal (Fisher 1984, 6).

Communicative acts are any instances of communication including individual words, sentences or forms of nonverbal behavior.

Symbols are “something that stands for something or suggests something else by reason of relationship, association, convention, or accidental resemblance” or “an act, sound or object having cultural significance and the capacity to excite or objectify a response” (Webster 1172).

Culture is “the integrated pattern of human behavior that includes thought, speech, action, and artifacts” (Webster 274). The functional use of the term culture in this paper will closely parallel Philipsen’s definition which views cultures as code systems consisting of elements such as symbols, meanings, premises and rules (1997).

Meaning on the basic level is the thing that is conveyed. On another level it is something of significant quality (Webster). Both of these definitions are applicable to this paper.

Assumptions

1. An objective reality exists.

This theory is founded on the assumption that there is an objective reality that exists apart from human perception. Our perceptions of that reality do not change the nature of reality. Saying, “The sky is green” does not change the colour of the sky. To quote C.S. Lewis “If nothing is self-evident, nothing can be proved” (53). I hold it to be self-evident that reality exists apart from human perception.

2. Reality can be known.

Hand in hand with the first assumption is the assumption that reality can be known. Since we live in reality it is assumed that we can know that reality. There is a connection between what is real and what we as human beings perceive. As such one of the goals of communication is to communicate in and about reality.

3. Human beings are active participants in reality.

Stewart states that “humans inhabit this coherent sphere” while “other creatures are simply embedded in their environment and do not have a relationship to it” (31). There is a relationship between humanity and the reality in which humanity exists. To say that humans do not participate in reality is akin to saying, “I do not exist”. As entertaining of an idea it may be, people do not live in isolated bubble that is impervious to the ‘real world’.

4. The goal of communication is to express and understand intended meanings.

Once the premise that intended meanings exist is accepted it is only a small step to accept the assumption that the goal of communication is to express and understand intended meanings. It is natural to want to know what a person means. More often than not we prefer clear speech to ambiguous speech. Uncertainty arises when we cannot decipher intended meanings. When we create messages we hope that they will be received as we intended them. Likewise hen we listen to a person speak we prefer to understand what they mean rather than supply our own meaning. The negative connotation associated with “putting words in someone’s mouth” is a testimony to this.

5. Any given communicative text or artefact can be understood with a degree of certainty (Hall 1999).

Without interviewing the creator of a text it is almost impossible to know with absolute certainty what the desired meaning of their text is. However, if a reader can learn what story or narrative the creator is a part of they can evaluate the text in terms of the creator’s narrative. Narrative gives the common ground needed for evaluating communicative acts. Without this assumption there can be no degree of certainty in any situation involving communication. Without some certainty that it is possible to understand a communicative act all communication becomes meaningless. In order to be able to communicate we must assume that a) people can understand what we are saying and b) we can understand them. Without this assumption all communication is meaningless.

Propositions

1. All human communication is narrative.

“Symbols are created and communicated ultimately as stories meant to give order to human experience and to induce others to dwell in them to establish ways of living in common, in communities in which there is sanction for the story that constitutes ones life” (Fisher 1984 6). Symbols are created for the purpose of explain and relating to others. By definition a symbol is created with a meaning in mind. If a symbol lacks meaning it is no longer a symbol. The meaning of a symbol is transmitted through stories or narratives.

If narration is “symbolic actions that have sequence and meaning for those who live, create or interpret them” then it would be incredibly difficult to find any sort of communicative act that is not narrative. By this definition the only communicative acts that would not be considered narrative are acts that have no meaning for those who create or interpret them. If this is the case one must question whether or not an act that has no meaning constitutes communication.

While it may be difficult to look at a communicative act consisting of one word or one sentence as being a narrative we can look at a single word or sentence as being part of a narrative. Every communicative act is part of a greater picture or story. This will be expanded and explained in further propositions.

2. “Homo narrans” as a metaphor for communication subsumes all other preexisting metaphors.

According to Walter Fisher all other metaphors for humanity including Homo economicus, Homo sociologicus and “rational man” are descriptions of ways “of recounting or accounting for human choice and action” (Fisher 1989, 62). Fisher states that recounting takes the forms of history, biography and autobiography while accounting takes a more theoretical approach to explanation. These forms of recounting and accounting for are then presented using narrative. All forms of recounting tell stories. Likewise all forms of accounting for actions are also narrative in nature (Fisher 1989). The Homo narrans metaphor itself is narrative in nature. The difference between this metaphor and the others is that Homo narrans is ‘bigger’. By ‘bigger’ I mean that all of the other metaphors can fit inside of Homo narrans. It is a larger category. For example, a square is a rectangle. It is a four-sided figure which has parallel sides of equal length. However, all rectangles are not necessarily squares since a square has to have four sides of equal length. The category of rectangle is ‘bigger’ than the category of square. Likewise I am a Canadian and I am an Islander. Not all Canadians are Islanders but all Islanders are Canadian.

3. The degree to which a communicative act is successful is the degree to which the participants can relate to or understand each other’s stories.

This proposition is rooted in Pillai’s statement that there is “no necessary correspondence between encoding and decoding” (1992, 228). What Pillai was saying is that a certain meaning is put into a text and another meaning is taken out- there may or may not be any correspondence between these two meanings. The goal of a communicative act under the definition proposed by this paper is to express a feeling or idea. This is done through narratives. The desire is for the receiver of the message or narrative to understand the sender’s preferred meaning. This can only be successful if there is some sort of common ground which the sender and receiver can share. This common ground is narrative. The extent to which the sender and receiver share narratives or can relate to each other’s narratives has a direct impact on how well the intended meaning of a message is understood.

4. All communication is contextual.

According to Delia, O’Keefe and O’Keefe people “develop interpretive processes through interaction in and with this social world” (1982, 154). As human beings we organize our cognitions in terms of experience. Likewise we live in a world that is already “defined, interpreted, organized and meaningful” (Delia, O’Keefe and O’Keefe 1982, p. 154). Looking at these statements in terms of narrative it could be said that a context is the same as a story in a figurative sense. So is experience. Communication makes sense when it fits our story or a story we are familiar with. Our cognitions are organized based on how they fit into our frame of reference, which is narrative in nature. “People restrict standards of comparison to certain contexts and not to others. People decide who and what particular situations and issues will be the validating context for our meanings” (Brummet 34-35). In other words people decide what stories will be used as validating contexts for our meanings.

Another way of looking at communication as being contextual is by relating the proposition to Burke’s story of the cocktail party. To paraphrase the story, life is an unending cocktail party. Imagine that you enter a party that began before you arrived. A conversation has been going on for quite some time. In fact the people participating in the conversation now are not even the people who started the conversation. They arrived and picked it up from someone else. Now you arrive and add your two cents. As the conversation goes on some of the other participants leave and are replaced. Eventually you too must leave and will be replaced (Burke 1957). As a participant in this unending conversation you were speaking from a certain viewpoint in a certain context. You brought all of your life experience to the conversation and left with a little bit more experience.

While Burke uses the analogy to view life as a cocktail party, the same analogy can be used to describe communication in general. Every act of communication can be seen as a moment of participation in someone else’s “cocktail party”. Every “party” has its context or background and you enter each party with varying degrees of knowledge concerning that background. You might know the “host” very well. You might not. Every time you leave one party you enter another. To restate a quote used earlier “‘Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?’” (MacIntyre 216). MacIntyre goes on to say that we enter life as characters playing roles into which we have been drafted. In order to communicate effectively we must learn what these roles are and how they relate to others (MacIntyre 216).

If every life is a story then every human interaction can be seen as a meeting ofnarratives. As such every communicative act takes place in the context of at least two stories. Every time we speak to another person we take part in their story. Thus all communication is framed within the context of the sender’s story and the receiver’s story.

5. One of the contexts in which communication must be understood is that of culture.

According to Philipsen communicative conduct cannot be fully understood without knowing the distinctive culture in whose terms it is spoken (1992). This makes sense. Since a culture is based on behavior that includes thought, speech and actions it is reasonable to assert that communication is contextualized culturally. Philipsen’s study of Teamsterville showed that some communicative patterns are culturally specific. For example, Teamsterville residents feel that speech is inappropriate and improper when dealing with outside threats (Philipsen 1975).

In Atlantic Canada it is customary to take off one’s shoes as you enter a person’s home. In some parts of the United States, such as in North Carolina, it is unusual to take off your footwear as you enter a home, unless your shoes are wet or dirty. One of the explanations I have been given for this is that taking off your footwear is a presumptuous way of making yourself at home. This is a communicative behavior that is contextualized according to culture.

6. Narratives have the power to unite and create cultures.

“In the absence of a unifying myth about itself, a nation, like a family, becomes dysfunctional” (Callwood 8). Myths or narratives have the power to unify cultures. Any given society or culture has a set of stories that tie the people together. In the case of a nation this shared narrative takes the form of history, the arts and pop culture.

Narratives even have the ability to create cultures. When a given number of people find meaning in a common narrative a culture or subculture can be formed. Canada was formed by a group of people who shared a common goal, a common narrative. They found meaning in the same dreams and ideals. This shared narrative unified them and gave them the opportunity to create a nation with its own culture.

Likewise, when attending a Chicago Blackhawks game a group of about twelve fans was observed sitting in the very back row of the arena. A common narrative unified these fans. As the game progressed the fans found meaning and enjoyment in making fun of their home team. They were brought together by a common tie- a shared pleasure found in mocking their team. In a sense this group of fans was a small subculture.

7. People can coordinate meaning through narrative.

“Persons can coordinate behavior despite dissimilar interpretive processes” (Delia, O’Keefe and O’Keefe, p. 151). The reason that people are capable of doing this is because they have the ability to share narratives. As Fisher would say, we can understand another person’s situation if their story ‘rings true’ . Shared narratives and the ability to understand and relate to others’ narratives make it possible for people to communicate and coordinate behavior.

8. Relationships are maintained through narratives.

Berger and Calabrese state that relationships are maintained through social knowledge (1975). It was previously stated that all forms of recounting or accounting are narrative. If knowledge comes from accounting or recounting than social knowledge is developed through narrative. We know how to react in a given circumstance because of what we experienced in the past or what others experienced in the past. These past experiences are accessed and recounted through the use of narrative. Stories of the past help us to understand how to act in the present. Berger and Calabrese also felt that similarity plays a large part in reducing uncertainty (1975). These similarities can be seen as being shared narratives. The more a given group of people share narratives the less uncertainty they will experience within their relationships with each other. This is backed up by Gudykunst’s assertion that the more a person interacts with their partner’s communication network, the less uncertainty they experience (1995). In other words, the more a person shares their partner’s narrative, the less uncertainty they experience.

9. Narratives allow people to make sense of the world in which they live.

“Through the application of cognitive schemes, experience is segmented into meaningful units and interpreted, and behavior is structured and controlled” (Delia, O’Keefe and O’Keefe, 1982 151). People apply certain evaluative systems to their experiences in order to make sense of the world. In many cases these “cognitive schemes” can take the form of narratives.

Many people structure and control their life according to a faith or religion. It is a framework which they use to give order and meaning to their life. This framework of religion is narrative in nature.

Summary

“We live in strange times. We also live in strange places: each in a universe of our own. The people with whom we populate our universes are the shadows of whole other universes intersecting with our own. Being able to glance out into this bewildering complexity of infinite recursion and say things like, ‘Oh, hi Ed! Nice tan. How’s Carol?’ involves a great deal of filtering skill for which all conscious entities have eventually to develop a capacity in order to protect themselves from the contemplation of the chaos through which they seethe and tumble.”

-Douglas Adams-

The above quote is taken from Mostly Harmless- a science fiction novel. However, this quote sums up the essence of the theory I have presented. While Adams was speaking of universes in a literal sense the analogy holds for the ‘real world’. Each of us has our own little universe. Our universes are constantly overlapping with the universes of others. In he same way our stories or narratives are constantly overlapping and intersecting. There is an infinite number of stories being played out as we speak and at the same time t is all part of a Bigger Story. By breaking it all down to little narratives we can relate our experiences to others. By creating and sharing stories we can communicate with each other.

Every time something new happens to us we try to reconcile it with our frame of reference- we try to fit it into our narrative. When we try to find meaning in life we turn to stories- the Christian story, the friendship story, the charity story, the sex story, the alcohol story, the pop culture story. We search for meaning in many places, good and bad, but ultimately we are searching for a way to reconcile our own narrative with the narratives around us. We are trying to fit into the Bigger Story.

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