I realize that I haven’t been updating much lately; school is delightfully intense. For one of my seminars this semester, we’re working on articulating our philosophical presuppositions, which is really quite challenging. Today, instead of generating new content, I’ll share a taste of what I’ve been writing lately:
In thinking about social structures, I am focusing on the smallest possible unit of social interaction, a dyad. My working definition of social interaction is an exchange between multi-step entities (those which behave according to internal forces.) There are multiple possible types of dyadic interactions, but for the moment, I am considering communication. Some people might define all social interactions as communication, but I am not sure whether this is a reasonable claim.
Clarifying the assumptions about the structure of dyadic communications is requisite to exploring any communication structures that extend beyond a dyad. I take the definition of communication as the exchange of meaning. This definition is based on several assumptions about the nature of communication:
1. Communication is a process of social construction for the exchange of meaning.
2. Communication is expressed in observable forms, such as speech and non-verbal sounds and gestures. The observability of communication allows us to model it and to observe its structure. I primarily consider face-to-face interactions that include speech and physical expressions for communication of meaning. The textualization of communication introduces additional considerations to with respect to understanding the structure of interactions, and is worth discussing separately.
3. Meaning encompasses intent and content. Meaning is not inherent in an utterance (a complete unit of speech in spoken language that is not of predefined length or composition) or act but is instead created through exchange. Is it possible or useful to characterize content as “information”?
4. Communication is enacted by interlocuters who have agreed to collaborate on the exchange of meaning. This assumption reflects the position of Searle’s speech act theory, that “commitment” is important to creating meaning. If one party decides not to commit to communicate, meaning cannot be exchanged because the necessary social construction cannot occur.
5. The interlocuters cannot achieve an identical understanding of their communication. This is due in part to linguistic challenges like polysemy in addition to the effects of antecedents on individuals (i.e. different life experiences differently shape our perceptions).
6. Communication is accomplished through exchanging meaning because it is insufficient to exchange words, with or without the addition of context. An outside observer of a dyadic communication does not participate in the exchange of meaning even though the observer perceives the same words and gestures in the same context as the communicating dyad, and may not necessarily understand the meaning of the communication as a result.
In this line of theory, there is often an assumption that successful communication requires a mutual agreement between person A and person B that meaning has been exchanged. This interaction requires that person A makes an utterance (or act) and that person B reacts in such a way as to confirm their understanding of entity A’s meaning. Closure of the interaction occurs when person A reacts to person B in a way that verifies that person B has correctly interpreted the meaning. This third step for closure may pose a challenge to outsider observation because a lack of additional reaction by person A can be interpreted as a tacit verification of person B’s reaction as appropriate. I find this assumption problematic because it generates two types of communication, successful and unsuccessful. However, whether an exchange of meaning is classified as successful or unsuccessful, it is still communication.
I am still not sure whether or not all social interactions are communication. If an interaction is not communication, what is it? It might be unsuccessful communication, or non-communicative. Unsuccessful communication would indicate that the process of exchanging meaning was engaged but not successfully completed, either because the entities could not verify that meaning was exchanged or because one entity did not agree to collaborate on the exchange of meaning. In the case where the entities cannot confirm that meaning has been exchanged, then the process of coming to this conclusion creates an imperfect exchange of meaning, and is communication nonetheless.
If non-communicative interactions differ from unsuccessful communication, it may be due to a lack of intent or content which removes the meaning from the interaction. Is it possible to have an interaction that lacks intent and/or content? If one person shoots another, that interaction probably includes intent (to shoot) but does not necessarily include content. We could claim that in such an interaction, the intent is the content, and therefore include this type of interaction as communication, for there is no misinterpreting the intent. Or is there? Perhaps the shooting is “accidental” and as such there is no intent either; any interpretation of intent would be incorrect. The way I have set up my assumptions deliberately allows for the interpretation of acts as communicative, so now I am trying determine whether there are acts that are simply functional and have no content, or if all acts are communicative. I’m not sure how to resolve this at the moment.