Improving Our Social Constructions

The social constructionist model emphasizes that we should take responsibility for the things we talk about and the way we talk about them. Our constructions of reality, accord­ing to the model, often distort our communication. Thus, we may accept cultural myths and stereotypes without thinking. Given the fact that symbols have the power to control us, it is useful to develop the critical ability to “see through” cultural constructions and to avoid creating them through our own talk. The ability to decipher our biases is a useful skill.

And whereas the psychological model suggests that individuals create communication, the social constructionist model suggests the opposite, that communication creates individuals. To be successful communicators, it maintains, we must be willing to follow cultural rules and norms. We must take our parts in the social drama our culture has laid out for us. We must also carefully consider whether those roles enhance our identities or inhibit them. If a role is outmoded or unfair to others, we must be willing to abandon it and find a new and more appropriate way of communicating.

Criticizing the Social Constructionist Perspective

For many of you, this model may seem to depart radically from commonsense ideas about communication. To say that we live in a symbolic rather than a physical, world seems to contradict our most basic notions about the nature of reality. For if we can never gain access to reality but can only experience con­structions of it, then how can we tell the difference between truth and illusion? The social constructionist model raises important philosophical questions as it emphasizes a relationship recognized since ancient times: the relationship be­tween rhetoric and truth.

Another troublesome aspect of the social constructionist position is that it defines good communication as socially appropriate communication. Scholars who take this perspective often talk of humans as social performers. To communicate successfully, one acts out a social role over which he or she has little con­trol. For many, this view implies that the good communicator is a social au­tomaton rather than a sincere and spontaneous self. Many people criticize the social constructionist perspective because it places too much emphasis on the social self and not enough on the individual self.

Communication as Patterned Interaction

The third model takes yet another view of communication. Instead of focusing on individual selves or on social roles and rules, this perspective centers on sys­tems of behavior. It suggests that the way people act when they are together is of primary importance, and it urges us to look carefully at patterns that emerge as people play the communication game.

Elements of a Pragmatic Model

According to the pragmatic view, communication consists of a system of inter­locking, interdependent behaviors that become patterned over time. Scholars who take a pragmatic approach argue that communicating is much like playing a game. When people decide to communicate, they become partners in a game that requires them to make individual “moves” or acts. Over time, these acts become patterned, with the simplest pattern being a two-act sequence called an interact. One of the reasons certain acts are repeated is that they result in payoffs for the participants. Over the course of the game, players become interdependent because their pay­offs depends on their partners’ actions. This analogy between communication and a game is illustrated in Figure 2.3.

Figure 2.3 – The Pragmatic Model of Communication

move	A’s moves	B’s moves
21	..................	B offends A
22	A ignores B	B repeats offense
23	A challenges B	B ignores A
24	A reissues challenge	B offers apology
25	A accepts apology	B thanks A
26	A changes subject	..................

In a pragmatic model, communication is seen as a game of sequential, interlocking moves between interdependent partners. Each player responds to the partner’s moves in light of his or her own strategy and in anticipation of future action. Some moves are specific to this game, and others are common gambits or strategies. All moves make sense only in the context of the game. Outcomes, or payoffs, are a result of patterned “play” between partners.

The analogy between chess and commu­nication holds in a number of ways. First, the game itself, not what goes on around it, is the central concern. Although it is possible to find books on chess that analyse the personality of individual players, most books focus on the structure of the game itself. Who white and black represent is not nearly as im­portant as how they respond to one another. To understand chess, you need to understand the present state of the board and the series of moves that produced it. To understand communication, pragmatists argue, you need to do much the same thing: understand the “moves” people use as they work out their relation­ship to one another.

Note that in Figure 2.3 the moves are listed sequentially. At every turn, you can see what black did and how white responded. Chess books always list moves in this way, using the exact sequence in which they occurred in the game. It would make no sense to list all the moves of the game randomly. The game consists of ordered, interlocking moves and makes sense only when we follow the sequence. In the same way, an individual act, or isolated behavior, makes sense only in context, that is, when we see it in relationship to previous acts. Ac­cording to the pragmatic viewpoint, the smallest significant unit of communication is the interact, which consists of two sequential acts. If you merely hear me cry, you know very little about what is happening. To understand what my cry­ing means, you need to know, at the very least, what happened immediately be­fore I cried. I may have become sad or angry, or I may have laughed so hard I began to cry. My crying may be a sincere expression of sorrow, or it may have been a move designed to make you feel sorry for me. The more you know about what happened before I cried, the more you understand the communication game I’m playing.

One of the factors that makes the game analogy appropriate is the inter­dependence of game players. Each player is affected by what another player does. Players need each other if they are to play. The same is true of communi­cation: A person can’t be a sender without someone to be a receiver, and it’s im­possible for a receiver to receive a message without a sender to send it. The dyad, not the individual, is important. Individuals don’t play the communica­tion game; partners (or opponents) do.

In a game every action is important. Every move I make affects you, and every move you make affects me. Even if I refuse to move, I am still playing: I am resigning from or forfeiting the game. This is even more significant in communication, where any response counts as a move. According to the pragmatic perspective, we cannot not communicate. If a friend promises to write to you and doesn’t, his or her silence speaks louder than words. You realize that your friend doesn’t want to continue the relationship. It is impossible not to communicate, just as it is impossible not to behave.

Finally, communication resembles a game in that both result in interde­pendent outcomes, or payoffs. In chess the payoff is the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat. Communication also has payoffs. Sometimes they are competi­tive; for example, someone “wins points” by putting down someone else. But more often than not, the payoffs are cooperative. Each person gets something out of playing. In fact, one way to view relationships is as cooperative impro­vised games. As people get to know one another, they learn to avoid unproduc­tive moves, and they begin to work out patterns of interaction that satisfy both of them. This is what we mean when we say that two people are “working out the rules” of their relationship. They are learning to play the relationship game with style and grace.