This course explores the nature of communication behavior in various types of relationships, and relationships at various stages. This course is designed to acquaint students with theoretical and methodological issues involved in studying cognition and emotion from a communication perspective. Philosophical, dialogic, and behavioral perspectives will be used to view lying and deception as civil, strategic and manipulative behavior. This course analyzes talk in conflict in a number of direct and mediated situations, focusing on the relations between social structures and communication, communication or language theories we may derive from the study of conflict talk, and the application of interaction and language theories to the study of conflict. Particular attention is paid to developing an approach to communication that combines the foral properties of language with the dynamics of social interaction.
Students develop a proposal for a field project.
For each approach you will learn basic assumptions and typical questions. The second purpose is to enable you to take an instance of talk or text and arrive at an interesting, persuasive scholarly analysis. The first part of the class will involve assignments with a common text. Then, you will work with a slice of interaction that you have selected to develop a rich analysis. Organizational Communication is the study of human interaction within complex organizations, and the management of organizational behavior.