START MICROFILM COLLECTION OF MANUSCRIPTS ON CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY FORMERLY: MICROFILM COLLECTION OF MANUSCRIPTS ON AMERICAN INDIAN CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY AND MICROFILM COLLECTIONS OF MANUSCRIPTS ON THE MIDDLE AMERICAN CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY Series:. LXI No: _ 322 L_ Photographed by: Department of Photoduplication - The Joseph Regenstein Library University of Chicago - Chicago, III. 60637 REDUCTION RATIO:J 12. Essaying Metacommunication: A Survey and Contextualization of Communication Research by Margaret Ruth Zabor [Ph.D., Indiana University, February 1978] MICROFILM COLLECTION OF MANUSCRIPTS ON CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY No. 322 Series LXI University of Chicago Library Chicago, Illinois 1978 ESSAYING METACOMMUNICATION: A SURVEY AND CONTEXTUALIZATION OF COMMUNICATION RESEARCH By Margaret Ruth Zabor Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in the School of Education, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana February, 1978 e 1978 Margaret Ruth Zabor All rights reserved. This study is dedicated to Dr. Norman A. McQuown, who by his example of dedication to scholarship and teaching has inspired many of his students to ask questions of the world and its peoples. Dr. Warren D. Stevens, chairman and much more, shared his wisdom and allowed me room to grow. Dr. Ivor K. Davies taught me an appreciation of British intellectual incisiveness. Dr. Ray Birdwhistell first showed me the richness of socially patterned behavior. And my friends, who supplied endless moral support, and my family, who gave me the opportunity to learn at distant universities -- to all of you, thank you. I must also mention the kindness of the people at the Eastern Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute, who not only allowed me to roam through their research files but also gave me training in research film and videotape production. TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION Introductory remarks 1 1. The Problem 4 2. Rationale for the study 6 3. Overview 10 References 12 CHAPTER TWO: TWO PARADIGMS OF COMMUNICATION RESEARCH Introductory remarks 13 1. Two meanings of the word "communication" 14 2. Definitions of "communication" in the communication research literature 15 3. The concept of communication 19 4. Theoretical and methodological diversity in communication research 23 5. Two paradigms of communication 6. Two views of the scientific enterprise 32 7. Broader contexts of communication research paradigms 35 8. The two paradigms and Mull ins' schema 37 9. Summary 41 References 43 CHAPTER THREE: THE "PSYCHOLOGICAL" APPROACH 1. Defining "communication" from the "psychological" point of view 47 (CHAPTER 3, CONTINUED) 2. Approaches to communication research within the "psychological" point of 49 3. The "psychological" paradigm in communication research: basic assumptions 55 4. Summary: the "psychological" paradigm 74 References 79 CHAPTER FOUR: THE "SOCIAL" APPROACH 1. Defining "communication" from the "social" point of view 91 2. "Communicational" and "social 94 3. Approaches to communication research within the "social" paradigm 96 4. The "social" paradigm in communication research: basic assumptions 117 5. Summary: the "social" paradigm 133 References 138 CHAPTER FIVE: THE NATURAL HISTORY APPROACH TO COMMUNICATION: THEORY Introductory remarks 147 1. The place of the "natural history" approach in scientific inquiry into communication 149 2. The Natural History of an Interview: context of the study 153 3. The NHI: Assumptions 162 References 179 CHAPTER SIX: THE NATURAL HISTORY OF AN INTERVIEW: METHODOLOGY 1. Obtaining a corpus 200 2. Analysis of the corpus 208 (CHAPTER 6, CONTINUED) 3. Paralanguage 227 4. Voice Base and Voice Set 234 5. Kinesic analysis 240 6. The larger linguistic-kinesic interpersonal system 257 7. Analysis of behavior in terms of diagnosis of pathology 261 8. Summary: the NHI methodology 263 References 265 CHAPTER SEVEN: THE NATURAL HISTORY APPROACH TO COMMUNICATION RESEARCH: KINDS OF QUESTION ASKED AND • DATA GENERATED 1. The "pointing series" 272 2. "Billy's" hand positions 284 3. Awareness of the camera 289 4. Interpersonal relationships 292 5. Interactional synchrony 303 6. Position,shifts and punctuation 305 7. Physical setting 318 8. The interview: spoken discourse 321 9. Kinesic transcription: a notation system for "micro-kinesic" transcription 335 10. Sample kinesic transcriptions on "etic" level 348 11. Preliminary analysis of transcription 367 12. Questions about psychological and pathological processes 372 13. Summary 373 CHAPTER EIGHT: IMPLICATIONS FOR EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH OF THE NHI_ Introductory remarks 374 1. Evaluation of the NHI study and approach 376 2. Questions of applicability 380 References 384 LIST OF FIGURES CHAPTER ONE 1-1: Steps involved in developing a learning system 8 CHAPTER TWO II-l: The individual as black box 29 11-2: Group properties by stages of group development 40 CHAPTER THREE ÍII-1: Basic communication model of "psychological" paradigm 47 III-2: Lasswell's model of communication 49 111-3: Ruesch's expansion of Lasswell 49 II1-4: A dynamic model of communication 50 II1-5: Information theory model 51 111-6: Information theory model with feedback loop 52 111-7: Ross's model of communication 53 III-8: The ABX model of communication 54 111-9: Communication nets 55 111-10: The "psychological" division of metacommunication 78 CHAPTER FOUR IV-1: Diagram of "social" paradigm basic communication model 92 IV-2: A behavioral program 100 IV-3: Feature compositions of the primary classes of speech sounds 111 IV-4: Benjamin L. Whorf's chart of phonological sequential constraints for English 112 IV-5: Diagram of metacommunication and communication research 136 CHAPTER FIVE V-l: English and Nootka 154 CHAPTER SIX VI-1: Phonetic transcription . 210 VI-2: Full phonetic transcription 211 VI-3: Phonemic segmentáis 214 VI-4: Phonemic suprasegmental framework 215 VI-5: Phonemic transcription with intonation contour 215 VI-6: Syntactic analysis 224 VI-7: T-G syntactic analysis 226 VI-8: Paralinguistic categories 228 VI-9: Linguistic categories: the NHJ_ transcription staff 239 VI-10: Assumed linguistic-kinesic transcription 243 VI-11: Diagram of typical linguistic-kinesic transcription 243 VI-12: Body motion lines of the NHI transcription staff 244-5 CHAPTER SEVEN VII-1: Frame 001615 274 VII-2: Frame 001649 275 VII-3: Frame 007926 276 VII-4: Frame 007941 277 VII-5: Frame 007954 278 VI1-6: Frame 007989 279 VI1-7: Frame 011087 280 VII-8: Frame 11231 281 VII-9: Frame 013472 282 VII-10: Frame 013823 283 VII-11: "Billy" — hand positions 286 VII-12: "Billy" -- hand positions 287 VII-13: "Billy" — hand positions 288 VI1-14: Looking toward camera 290 VII-15: Looking toward camera 291 VII-16: Frame 001703 294 VII-17: Frame 001718 295 VII-18: Frame 001725 296 VII-19: Frame 001741 297 VII-20: Frame 001750 298 VII-21: Frame 001758 299 VII-22: Frame 001770 300 VII-23: Frame 001778 301 VII-24: Frame 001817 302 VII-25: Frame 001382: Interactional synchrony 304 VII-26: Frame 00001 306 VII-27: Frame 000821 307 VII-28: Frame 000876 308 VII-29: Frame 000929 309 VII-30: Frame 000996 310 VII-31: Frame 004472 311 VII-32: Frame 006942 312 VII-33: Frame 010078 313 VII-34: Frame 010414 314 VII-35: Frame 013441 315 VII-36: Frame 013602 316 VII-37: Frame 014916 317 VII-38: Frame 001. Physical setting 319 VII-39: Frame 0004132 Physical setting 320 VII-40: Hypothetical Interaction Chart 372 CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION The level of explanation adopted by a science is a direct consequence of what it decides to regard as black boxes. Often these decisions are implicit; nevertheless this is largely all that separates one scientific discipline from another. Biochemists, physiologists, and psychologists, for example, may sometimes study the samé empirical phenomenon. What distinguishes their separate approaches is the assumption they make about the appropriate level of analysis, that is, what they are specifying as systems. (Cleary, 1976, 133) All social scientists study human behavioral organization. Educational researchers focus upon the behavioral organization of human learning and teaching within the social contexts of educational establishments. This choice of focus, more than the specific theory or methodology, is what distinguishes the eclectic discipline of educational research from other social science disciplines. In borrowing theoretical constructs and methodological tools from sister fields, however, the educational researcher also, and often with a low level of awareness, borrows their paradigms and world-views -- an entire intellectual framework of assumptions about human nature and social nature and the social scientific enterprise -- which colors and shapes his own study. Failure to examine these implicit assumptions leads to loss of scientific rigor, to misreading of published reports, to inappropriate choices of research strategy, and to an unacknowledged imposition of structure upon the very phenomena being studied. Two basic intellectual frameworks within which a great deal of scientific research has been conducted have been characterized as "physicalist" and "atomistic" versus "cybernetic", "systemic" and "holistic": the basic opposition is between analysis down to bounded units versus synthesis of interacting and interrelated wholes. The intellectual history of this opposition can be traced back to the arguments of the early Greek philosophers and perhaps even earlier. The split has been embodied in more recent oppositions of the experimental natural sciences to the descriptive social sciences, or the