2 Perspectives of Human Communication

perspectives of human communication: the constructivist theory and the

pragmatic or systems theory. The plan of the research will be to set

forth the principal assumptions epistemology and ontology of

constructivism, and then to discuss research literature that

illustrates how these theories have been applied to the study of

communication. Based on this discussion, the ways in which

constructivism as a theory of human communication differs from and may

be compared to and contrasted with systems theory will be examined,

with a view toward evaluating their usefulness as controlling

disciplines of communication studies.

The ontology of constructivism as a theory of human

communication refers, in general, to the basis of reality upon which

communication theory rests. The epistemology of constructivism, on the

other hand, refers to the logical method by which one may arrive at

what appears to be true about how communication occurs. Accordingly, as

Delia, O'Keefe, and O'Keefe indicate (1982), the ontology of

constructivism rests upon certain assumptions about the world as a

whole and about man's beingintheworld. As to the former, they cite

the term (Weltanschauungen(, or a world view, which embraces the idea

that scientific methods and theories can be applied to an understanding

or perception of how the world works. Elsewhere, Delia (1977)

elaborates (Weltanschauungen( as a point

. . .
hat the perceptions, interpretations, and motivations of individuals determine the nature of human communication. This means that, as Delia (1977) notes, there is a "central role of interpretive processes inhuman interaction." It follows from this that one can apply the understanding of such processes to a variety of communication situations: oneonone, onetogroup, grouptoone, and onetosociety. In this regard, Delia's discussion of the concept of (credibility( (1976) is devoted to showing that research into identifying the credibility of various persons is incomplete to the extent it ignores the biases of those evaluating credibility. The fact that research into credibility has been so inconclusive and suggestive of additional research, in his view, "reflects a grounding more in psychometric theory and methods than in a theoretic explication of the credibility concept itself" (1976; 364). The constructivist would want to have an idea of where the perceiver of credibility "is coming from," as it were, in order to see why and how he made a judgment of another's credibility. The context in which the judgment of credibility is made, in this view, is as important as the judgment itself. Const
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
O'Keefe O'Keefe, Fisher Beach, Delia Clark, Elsewhere Delia, Clark Switzer, Millar RogersMillar, RogersMillar Millar, Drecksel Werbel, , Journal Speech, human communication, delia jesse, communication behavior, communication occurs, nature communication, husbands wives, theory human communication, theory human, cognitive complexity, delia et al, perceptions interpretations, ontology constructivism, fisher beach 1979, quarterly journal speech, comparative essays edited,
Approximate Word count = 3257
Approximate Pages = 13 (250 words per page)

More Essays on 2 Perspectives of Human Communication