APA Handbook of Interpersonal Communication

341 Pages·2010·12.66 MB·English

by  David Matsumoto (ed.)

APA Handbook of
Interpersonal
Communication

APA Handbook of
Interpersonal
Communication
Edited by
David Matsumoto
American Psychological Association • Washington, DC
Walter de Gruyter, Inc. • New York, NY
Copyright © 2010 by the American Psychological Association. All rights reserved. Except as per-
mitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be repro-
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Published by
American Psychological Association
750 First Street, NE
Washington, DC 20002
www.apa.org
APA Handbook of Interpersonal Communication; David Matsumoto, Editor
Derived from original work edited by Gerd Antos and Eija Ventola, Eds., in cooperation with
Tilo Weber, and Gert Rickheit and Hans Strohner, Eds., and published by Mouton de Gruyter,
an imprint of Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG.
Chapters 1–11 were originally published in Handbook of Interpersonal Communication, Gerd
Antos and Eija Ventola, Eds., in cooperation with Tilo Weber, 2007, Berlin, copyright © 2007 by
Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG. Chapters 12–13 were originally published in Handbook of
Communication Competence, Gert Rickheit and Hans Strohner, Eds., 2008, Berlin, copyright ©
2008 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG. All rights reserved.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
APA handbook of interpersonal communication / edited by David Matsumoto. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-1-4338-0780-0
ISBN-10: 1-4338-0780-7
ISBN-13: 978-1-4338-0781-7 (e-book)
ISBN-10: 1-4338-0781-5 (e-book)
1. Interpersonal communication. I. Matsumoto, David Ricky. II. American Psychological
Association. III. Title: Handbook of interpersonal communication.
HM1166.A65 2010
302—dc22 2009052507
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A CIP record is available from the British Library.
Printed in the United States of America
First Edition
Contents
Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .vii
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
David Matsumoto
Part I. Theoretical Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1
1. Social Psychology and Personal Relationships:
Accommodation and Relational Infl uence Across Time and Contexts . . . . . . .3
Margaret J. Pitts and Howard Giles
2. Face-to-Face Communication and Body Language. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Paul J. Thibault
3. Technically-Mediated Interpersonal Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Caja Thimm
4. Feeling Space: Interpersonal Communication and Spatial Semiotics. . . . . . .77
Louise J. Ravelli and Maree Stenglin
5. Relational Work, Politeness, and Identity Construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Miriam A. Locher
6. Humor, Jokes, and Irony Versus Mocking, Gossip, and Black Humor . . . . .139
Alexander Brock
7. Praising and Blaming, Applauding, and Disparaging—Solidarity,
Audience Positioning, and the Linguistics of Evaluative Disposition . . . . . . 161
Peter R. R. White
Part II. Applied Interpersonal Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .185
8. Everyday Communication and Socializing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Tilo Weber
9. Counseling, Diagnostics, and Therapy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
Peter Muntigl
10. Youth, Discourse, and Interpersonal Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .235
Jannis Androutsopoulos and Alexandra Georgakopoulou
11. Language and Discourse Skills of Elderly People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .253
Anna-Maija Korpijaakko-Huuhka and Anu Klippi
12. Nonverbal Communicative Competence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .273
Nancy M. Puccinelli
13. Media Competence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .289
Daniel Perrin and Maureen Ehrensberger-Dow
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
About the Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .327
v

Contributors
Jannis Androutsopoulos, PhD, King’s College London, England
Alexander Brock, Halle University, Germany
Maureen Ehrensberger-Dow, PhD, Zürich University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland
Alexandra Georgakopoulou, PhD, King’s College London, England
Howard Giles, PhD, University of California, Santa Barbara
Anu Klippi, PhD, University of Helsinki, Finland
Anna-Maija Korpijaakko-Huuhka, University of Tampere, Finland
Miriam A. Locher, PhD, University of Basel, Switzerland
David Matsumoto, PhD, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA
Peter Muntigl, University of Salzburg, Austria, and Simon Fraser University, Canada
Daniel Perrin, PhD, Zürich University of Applied Sciences, Winterthur, Switzerland
Margaret J. Pitts, PhD, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia
Nancy M. Puccinelli, PhD, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts
Louise J. Ravelli, PhD, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
Paul J. Thibault, PhD, University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway
Caja Thimm, PhD, University of Bonn, Germany
Maree Stenglin, PhD, University of Sydney, Australia
Tilo Weber, PhD, University of Nairobi, Kenya
Peter R. R. White, University of Adelaide, South Australia
vii

Introduction
What can be more important in today’s world than communication? Commu-
nication is the fundamental process by which humans live as social animals.
Because of communication we can come together to build families, social net-
works, and professional associations. Because of communication we can work
with very different others toward a common goal. Because of communication
we can organize sports, leisure, and recreational activities. And unfortunately,
because of (mis)communication we can argue, fi ght, and wage war.
Thus, it is fi tting that the study of communication is a fi eld of active scien-
tifi c and scholarly endeavor, and equally fi tting that much of the state-of-the-
art knowledge in this area be brought together in handbooks such as this one
and its companion handbook, the APA Handbook of Intercultural Communica-
tion. Communication has been studied from many different perspectives (e.g.,
basic and applied sciences) and disciplines (e.g., sociology, linguistics, psychol-
ogy), and indeed today these efforts have amassed a wealth of information
about communication. The purpose of these two handbooks is to compile, orga-
nize, and synthesize much of this knowledge.
It’s important to have a working defi nition of communication, and as the
reader will readily see, each of the chapters present a common yet unique per-
spective on what such a defi nition may entail, either explicitly or implicitly. It
may be impossible to arrive at a defi nition of communication with which all
will agree. At the same time, I strongly believe that it is important for authors
to make explicit their working defi nitions, and for readers to be able to know
what those working defi nitions are (and of course to have their own working
defi nitions).
For me, a common thread among all defi nitions of communication involves
some degree of message or information exchange between two or more interac-
tants. Indeed, the encoding and decoding of such messages forms the founda-
tion of any communication episode. And because this information exchange
occurs through multiple channels and multiple signals, and through both ver-
bal and nonverbal behaviors, communication is a rich, complex process.
I believe that one very important function of communication is the convey-
ance of intent (and, indeed, this is a perspective that is echoed by most of the
authors in these volumes). One of the reasons why humans can produce and live
very successfully in highly complex, layered social networks is because we can
communicate intent and share intentions with others. Some scholars believe,
in fact, that shared intentionality is an ability unique to humans (Tomasello,
Carpenter, Call, Behne and Moll 2005).
In my view, shared intentionality is one of the major reasons why human
cultures have survived and thrived. While there are many defi nitions of cul-
ture (as there are of communication), I defi ne culture as a meaning and infor-
mation system that is transmitted across generations (Matsumoto and Juang
2007). Shared intentionality allows for human cultures to evolve and have
ix
x DAVID MATSUMOTO
three characteristics that nonhuman cultures do not: social complexity, dif-
ferentiation, and institutionalization. And because communication is at the
heart of the conveyance of intent and the production of shared intentionality,
it is therefore at the heart of human cultural life. Without communication as
we know it today, we would not have human cultures as we know it today.
And the survival success story of humans, which has occurred because of the
evolution of human cultures, would not have been possible without communi-
cation. For this reason alone, communication is an incredibly important topic
not only for people today and tomorrow but also for humankind throughout the
millennia.
An Evolving Understanding of Interpersonal
and Intercultural Communication
Of the many potential ways of divvying up the fi eld, one major method is the
distinction between interpersonal and intercultural communication, the former
referring to communication among individuals of the same cultural background
using the same cultural framework, and the latter referring to communication
among individuals who are agents of different cultures, and who use differ-
ent cultural frameworks. This distinction is important because of the implicit
association of the communication process to cultural frames. Different cul-
tures promote different procedures and meaning systems in the encoding and
decoding of messages, and even when the same language is used, underlying
cultural differences in frameworks can produce differences in meaning of the
language (e.g., American vs. British vs. Australian English, or different mean-
ings of the same terminology among branches of the military).
Sometimes, however, the distinction between interpersonal and intercul-
tural communication can be blurred. After all, intercultural communication
has traditionally been considered essentially interpersonal communication
among people from different cultures. And given that no two people are exactly
alike, even when from the same linguistic culture, almost any interpersonal
communication can be considered (to some degree) intercultural (just ask any
married couple whose members come from two different familial cultures).
I believe that, interestingly, much of the blurring of the distinction between
interpersonal and intercultural communication has come about because of our
increased understanding of person and culture and the intricate relationship
between the two. Indeed, it is clear today that it is almost impossible to consider
one without the other, and they both co-evolved to have the capacities, abilities,
competences, and dispositions that allow for communication to occur. Much of
what you will read in the remaining chapters in both handbooks, therefore,
refl ects this fuzziness, which is inevitable given the nature of the topic area
and the rather artifi cial distinction we scientists have placed in use.
Thus, although the distinction between interpersonal and intercultural
communication has proven to be a very useful one in the fi eld, it is not without
pitfalls and limitations. Regardless, this distinction has been the major way
in which research and theorizing has been organized in the fi eld, and for that
reason these handbooks maintain that distinction.