good theory and good practice: an argument in progress

Robyn Penman

Communication Theory

Two: Three

August 1992

Pages: 234-250

Good Theory and Good Practice: An Argument in Progress

This article is concerned with the question of what we might take to be good communication theory and good communication practice within a new paradigm. The metatheoretical assumptions of this new paradigm are used to show that the setting aside of truth in favor of morality is one of its radical distinguishing features. I t is then argued that the practical moral basis for evaluating communication needs to reside in how the process affects our human experience and what it affords us in the choices we have available and the opportunities for action. Four criteria are generated out of an understanding of communication in this new paradigm: constitutiveness, contextualness, diversity, and incompleteness. The article focuses on how these criteria might be used to make judgments about good and bad communication theory and practice.

Over this century, substantial changes in ways of thinking about social practices have occurred. These changes are represented in at least five major theoretical movements: hermeneutic-interpretive, dialectic, critical, ethnogenic, and constructionist. The growth of these movements has led to the claim that a substantial paradigm shift is occurring- a shift from what some have called “modern” to “postmodern” science (e.g., Bernstein, 1983; Lyotard, 1984; Toulmin, 1982).

The communication discipline has been challenged by these developments. Over the past decade we have seen ICA conferences hold “paradigm dialogues,” major journals with contrasting paradigm themes (e.g., journal of Communica- tion, 1983), and new books assessing these developments (e.g., Dervin, Gross- berg, O’Keefe, & Wartella, 1989). In one way it is not surprising that the communication discipline has so readily taken on the challenge. The integral relationship between social practices and communication means that fundamental changes in ways of thinking about social practices also lead to fundamental changes in ways of thinking about communication (Penman, 1988).

We currently have a number of advocates of this new way of thinking who argue that the old paradigm, broadly falling under the rubric of “empiricism,” has not got us where we want to go or has not taken us far down a very long road. We also have a number of eloquent critics arguing that there are many unanswered problems with the new approach. Cappella’s (1989) critique of the arguments of Krippendorff (1989), Craig (1989), and Hall (1989) well demonstrates the eloquent critic’s position. The even-handedness of the argument is important, and I take the liberty to quote at length:

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Good Theory and Good Practice

Each of these positions is intellectually seductive because each opens what has seemed to

be a closed and unsuccessful system of inquiry to new assumptions. And these assumptions are themselves almost irresistible: richly layered textual meanings, value oriented practical research, and a science that creates rather than merely reflecting its world. We should be wary of these invitations, not because the invitations are inherently misleading or obviously false. Rather wariness should stem from the fact that once we are drawn into Craig’s, Hall’s and Krippendorffs positions, we will find that others who have been drawn in do not see the same values, meanings and constructions that we see. . . . In short, when competing knowledge claims are generated, how will they be adjudicated? (p. 142)

Cappella properly points to the heart of the problem-by what shall we judge them? And it is important to emphasize that this is as much a problem for the advocates of the new position as it is for the critics against. As an advocate, I wish to explore how we may answer the question raised by critics like Cappella and, as a consequence, progress further along the pathway of a new way of thinking.

This article is concerned with the question of what we might take to be good communication theory and good communication practice within the new paradigm. If we are to develop new theory and indicate new practice, we must in the end have a way of judging this new theory and practice. In this article I will develop a metatheoretical framework that can provide us with a basis for deciding what counts as good communication, whether of theory, research, or practice. But it is not the same basis as used in the mainstream paradigm. In that paradigm, truth acts as the central concept for judgment, whether it be truth in the strict sense of corresponding to reality, or in the more pragmatic sense of meeting a set of well-accepted scientific criteria that aims to maximize an approx- imation to reality. In the new paradigm, moral issues replace those of truth: judgments about “good” constitute a discourse of morality rather than one of truth. It is this concern with a moral discourse that will act as the central core for the arguments to follow. But as a prelude to that argument, it is necessary to spell out the metatheoretical assumptions that lead us to reconsider the nature of both communication theory and practice.

A Metatheoretical Framework I do not adopt any particular one of the aforementioned, “new parcdigm” theoretical positions here. Instead, I will take assumptions that are shared by all and briefly explore their implications as they apply to an understanding of communication. Gergen’s (1982) analysis of the new movements, and their common underlying assumptions, provides the base for this discussion. Communicative Action Has a Voluntary Base In engaging in communicative activity human beings are assumed to act in a more or less voluntary manner. To make such a proposition, we are also assuming that humans are, more or less, agents of their own lives (e.g., see HarrC, 1979). This assumption does not specify total lack of environmental constraints, or total free will in the classic philosophic sense. It simply specifies that actions are not wholly

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determined by the immediate environment. On the other hand, this assumption does negate the mechanistic belief in strict environmental determination of behavior. Rather than seeing communication as consisting of behavioral responses to stimulus messages, and thus explicable by ‘‘natural” laws, communicative action is seen as understandable on the basis of a series of voluntary decisions.

Given this assumption of a voluntary base, our capacity to generalize about communication is limited. Macintyre (1985) has very astutely pointed to the human source of this limitation:

We are thus involved in a world in which we are simultaneously trying to render the rest of society predictable and ourselves unpredictable, to devise generalizations which will cap- ture the behavior of others and to cast our own behavior into forms which will elude the generalizations which others frame. (p. 104)

Such a conflict truly reflects our voluntary base and imposes limits on our capacity as researchers and practitioners to generalize. To the extent that we, as people, voluntarily decide to elude the generalizations of others, then our observations as researchers will have limited generalizability. Knowledge Is Socially Constituted Human willfulness is not the only source of unpredictability in social life. The very manner in which knowledge is constituted acts as a further destabilizing process. The traditional epistemology conceives of knowledge as representations of well-formed objectivity existing in the external world (Shotter, 1987). In contrast, it is assumed here that knowledge does not have an objective, immutable base in the “real” world-it is neither out there to be found or to be discov- ered. Instead, knowledge is created in the human social realm.

The basis to this argument is found in a number of philosophic and linguistic traditions that all point to the arbitrary stand-for relationship between a word and the thing named (e.g., Anscombe, 1957; Winch, 1958). This is epitomized in Wittgenstein’s extensive explorations in the Tractatus (Janik & Toulmin, 1973), where he concluded that the nature of language was such that the relationship between it and the world was ineffable. When these arguments are couched in a communication perspective, we do not just use language-we are engaged in a communication process that generates meaning. The import of this is fundamental: language is constitutive of what is represents (Potter & Litton, 1985). Thus, in using language in our communication process we are bringing about what it is we are trying to represent.

There are two major implications of this general argument here. First, if there is no isomorphic relation between our physical experience of the world and our understanding of it, then it is not possible to adopt an objective position for studying that world. Our understanding arises out of our meaning generation process, not out of our physical experiences or observations, per se. As such, the traditional objective-subjective distinction becomes meaningless (Hard , 1983). Within the framework being developed here, there is only one realm- the intersubjective- for researcher and researched alike.

The second, and related, consequence is the recognition that all accounts and

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explanations generated in our research process are not discoveries of the external world but inventions of the intersubjective world. Our understandings of communication generated through our theorizing and researching is conducted within, and by, the very same process we are seeking to understand. In generating theory, and even in describing action, we are creating a story to make sense of our world (e.g., Lyotard, 1984; Rorty, 1980; Shotter, 1987). Social Knowledge is Historically Embedded Given that our understanding of the world is generated in communication and that it is a process over time, it follows that the temporal context plays a role in our understandings. What we determine to be knowledge and how we interpret communicative action is a function of the historical context in which the process takes place. This applies both to broad temporal contexts, such as historical eras, and narrow contexts such as communicative episodes. As the context changes, so too does our understanding. And just as importantly, without that context there can be no intelligibility of communicative action (Macintyre, 1985).

This proposition negates the possibility of any stable knowledge base. As communication scholars we are confronted with the recognition that any prevail- ing understanding of communication is tied to our broader historical context. As that context changes so too does our understanding. Moreover, there is no necessity that the same temporal context, broad or narrow, is shared by all participants. Thus there is the potential for great variation in interpretation and understanding. Social Theory Has Agencylls Interventionist When we propose a theory of social life or give an account of it, we are contribut- ing to bringing about our knowledge of that social life. It is in this “bringing about” sense that recent theorists (e.g., Pearce & Cronen, 1980) have proposed that social theory has its own agency in the same way as the persons generating the theory.

This proposition about agency is important because of the role it attributes to theory. The traditional view has theory as an objective explanation of how things work in a world that is given. In contrast, I am suggesting that we bring about our world in the theories we propose of it. When we propose such concepts as goals, uncertainty reduction, or the like, we are in fact offering an interpretation of action. We are saying that our action occurred because she wanted, for example, to reduce uncertainty or reach a goal. And, in the saying of it, it makes a contribution to what we take as real, at least for some.

Our theories of communication offer the same interpretation of action and make the same contribution to what we take as real. From this it can be argued that there is an integral link between theory and practice. In generating ways of making sense of our communicative world, we are in fact providing the framework for action. The range and nature of our possibilities for action are as broad or as narrow as the range and nature of the interpretations available.

The interventionist nature of theory has further important implications for communication theory. As Pearce and Cronen (1980) have argued: “Viewing the theorist as an autonomous actor suggests the irrelevance of truth or falsity for evaluating a theory” (p. 110). In elaborating on this claim it is necessary to

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recognize that there have been various notions of truth proposed by philosophers over the centuries.

At the least, this proposition can be given serious consideration if we take the conventional, common-sense view of truth- the correspondence theory of truth. According to this correspondence theory, a statement is true if it corresponds to the facts, to reality (Speake, 1979). But if we accept that the relationship between a statement (i.e., language used) about the world and the world itself is ineffable, then this notion of truth is meaningless. It may be that some other notion of truth could be useful to us but the common-sense one is not; nor are the mainstream alternatives to this common-sense one, such as coherence theory. What other notions of truth may be useful are well beyond the scope of the present article. Indeed, it could well be profitable simply to follow the approach attributed to Pilate by Francis Bacon in his essay, “Of Truth”: “What is truth? said Pilate; and would not stay for an answer” (Speake, 1979, p. 355). I am not staying for an answer either, because I believe that morality is of far greater practical concern here. Social Knowledge Is Based on Value Our knowing is not independent of ourselves and our communicative actions. Similarly our theories and our research are not independent of ourselves and our communicative actions. It is for this reason that many recent theorists have proposed a valuational basis to our commonly accepted theories. But this valuational base lies not just at the heart of every theory, it also resides in the very simple terms we use to describe action. No symbolic system, including language, is neutral with respect to its subject matter: “[wlhat may be thought of as an act of transposition is always an act of transformation” (Sless, 1981, p. 124). In the giving of a label to an act, a transformation takes place and one that inevitably contains value.

The consequences of this proposition for any researcher, let alone communication scholars, are both profound and difficult. As Gergen (1982) has aptly put it: “if theoretical language inevitably carries with it implication for action, then the scientist can no longer take refuge in the Shangri-la of ‘pure description.”’ (p. 205). There is, in this view, no “pure description” within which to take refuge. Every naming and every theory transform in some way or another. Any form of research or theoretical development in the area of communication is intervention, and this intervention should bring with it a moral responsibility.

Moral Issues Are Central From my reading of the arguments in the emergent paradigm, the moral issue is central. It is, in essence, where all the assumptions and arguments lead to-so centrally, in fact, that we could claim that the setting aside of truth in favor of morality is one of the radical distinguishing features of the new paradigm. And this feature has both practical and theoretical implications.

First, the assumptions point to the centrality of morality to our communicative practices. If communicative action has a voluntary base, then we are responsible for our actions. If our social knowledge is constituted in our communicative

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practices, the knowledge is of our making and, again, we are responsible. If our knowledge is based on values, then we have incorporated, by implication, what we believe is good and desirable. If these are the case, then our communicative practices have at their heart a moral dimension. As communication researchers we could well ask in what ways are moral orders indicated and acted out in communicative action. The work of H a d (1983), Pearce and Cronen (1987; Cronen, 1986), and Penman (1991) provide recent examples of approaches to this question by specifying characteristics of moral orders in action. But even these approaches operating within the new paradigm are not exempt from having to come to terms with the second aspect of the moral issue: the moral dimension to research and theory.

Second, the assumptions also point to the centrality of morality to communication theory and research. If all theory and research are in part invention and not neutral discovery, then all research is also value based. If all research is intervention, then it is in some way or another intervention into a moral order. We may wish to ignore the moral problems implied by these arguments, especially if we believe that our inquiry should be objective and value-free. Unfortu- nately, that will not make the problem go away. The study of human beings by human beings will not allow it. Given that we can and do influence society in our theoretical inventions and our research interventions, it would seem imperative that we confront the moral problem head on.

To confront this problem requires us to accept that there are some communicative practices that are better than others and that, similarly, there are some communication theories that are better than others. So, to return to the question asked at the beginning: by what shall we judge them?

A Basis for Evaluation Typical judgments about communication use concepts of effects, goal achieve- ments, or the like. The whole effects research tradition, especially in mass communication (e.g., see McQuail, 1987), well illustrates the preoccupation with effects in the communication literature. It would seem that we have a similar preoccupation in our everyday life. In our practical communicative activities, the common descriptions of everyday acts usually rely upon some assumption of effect or goal. Consider for example expressions like “that was attention grab- bing” or “that had little impact.” Despite the fact we frequently use these types of judgments in everyday life, they are not without their problems, especially when considered within the current metatheoretical framework.

In the first instance, communicative action is judged in terms of the effects it brings about. But these types of judgments are not strictly judgments of communication per se. Instead, they are judgments about whether communication brought about what the indioidrtal wanted out of the process. They are judgments of individual actions and effects, not of an intersubjective process. Second, to be able to make judgments about effects requires the demarcation of an effect from its antecedent; that is, one must be able to isolate the action from the consequence at a point in time. Yet, even as that effect occurs the communication

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process continues and the retrospective and emergent contexts, essential for meaning inference, change.

The identification of an effect, then, is based on an essentially arbitrary punc- tuation of an on-going interactive process. The term “arbitrary,” however, is not meant to imply capriciousness, randomness, or lack of structure, but to indicate the indeterminate range of alternatives that are available. There are a multitude of alternative effects that could be demarcated, depending on the points of punc- tuation, and there are a multitude of alternative interpretations for any one frame. In other words, the identification of effects is as problematic as any other meaning generation process.

There is an equally important moral issue raised by the use of effects to make judgments about communication. When prime attention is placed on effects, the means whereby the effects are brought about tend to be ignored. Instead, both evaluation and practice are focused on the goal or effect to be achieved, not on the desirability or otherwise of the means. That this has serious moral implications is well demonstrated in Macintyre’s (1985) powerful analysis of the moral order in the Western world. It is an order in which any genuine distinction between manipulative and nonmanipulative relations between people has been obliterated. As such, it seems impossible for people to conceive of communication as anything but a manipulative tool, an instrument for our personal ends. When communication is taken as a simple instrument, it is impossible to engage in what Macintyre calls a “moral quest”: communication cannot be seen as something that allows us to discover or create when it is only seen as a means to personal ends.

In contrast, the metatheoretical framework of this article places its empha- sis on the discovery and creative aspects of communication rather than on the instrumental/manipulative. This framework leads to a preoccupation with the means rather than the ends. As such, the criteria for making judgments are concerned with the process itself, not with any arbitrarily identified effects of the process.

If one rigorously adheres to the current metatheoretical framework, it is impossible to base any form of evaluation outside of the communication process. To make any evaluation of the process relies on meaning generation that is part of the process. In a broad sense, it is impossible to get out of the communication process to make a judgment of it.

Grounding the criteria for evaluation within the process is the solution taken by a number of recent social theorists, most notably Habermas (e.g., see McCar- thy, 1984). Habermas’s theory of communicative action, however, has been subject to some criticism (e.g., see Bernstein, 1983). Three different grounds can be isolated. First, the ideal speech situation, while claimed to be inherent in any speech act, is never achievable in practice- as even Habermas acknowledges (Burleson & Kline, 1979). Second, the assumption of rationality, reflecting a form of pure cognition, is not only questionable, but unnecessary (Pearce & Wood, 1982). Third, the belief that rational consensus is the most desirable goal is also subject to question (e.g., Rorty, 1980). But while Habermas’s theory does have problems, his moral-political intentions are still to be lauded. Here, I wish

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to respect those intentions but develop an alternative argument that does not require the positing of ideal, rational criteria.

To do this, it will help to return to a key point in Habermas’s claims and one that is common to other authors, such as Gadamer, Arendt, and Rorty. As Bernstein (1983) points out, all four theorists recognize that the ideals they are positing are somehow already incipient in the communication community but not realized in practice. Now, rather than positing a set of ideals, it may perhaps be sufficient simply to ask what it is that is incipient but not realized. Or to use Shotter’s (1987) phrase, what is it in our communication that is currently “rationally invisible” that we could make visible?

Realizing the incipient, or making the rationally invisible visible, can be rec- ommended for very good practical reasons, and ones not necessarily restricted to the current metatheoretical framework. Bennett’s (1 985) paper on communication and social responsibility is a good example in point. As he so directly puts it: the communication of “impoverished representations are not useful for enriching the human experience, . . . or in increasing the chances of ordinary people to participate in the discovery and transformation of their own condition” (p. 259). If there are elements of our condition that are kept rationally invisible or are only incipient in our practices, then our communication has an impoverished representation of what could be possible. This in turn limits our options and opportunities for actions.

Bennett (1985) proposes that we need a code of good communication that keeps language sensitive and accountable to human experience and, by implication, keeps our experiences open. A similar theme is reflected in Krippendorffs (1989) essay on the ethics of communication. Drawing on the same metatheoretical frame used here, he argues that we have a major social imperative: “in communicating with others, maintain or expand the range of choices possible” (P. 93).

So, what I want to suggest is that the basis for evaluating communication theory and practice needs to reside in how the process affects our human experience and what it affords us in the choices we have available and the opportunities we have to act. Good communication theory and good communication practice would be those that enrich our experience and increase our options and opportunities for actions. Bad communication, conversely, restricts or negates our experiences and options. As the next step in this argument I propose to explore how the current metatheoretical framework might help us to elaborate a set of criteria by which communication can be judged in these terms.

Evaluating Communication In the building of the metatheoretical argument, certain characteristics of communication have been implied. Now what I want to do is use these characteristics as the basis for the evaluative criteria. But before doing so I must divert a potential counterargument.

The metatheoretical assumptions could be taken to suggest that there can be no characteristics of communication, or at least no real ones: if all we do is

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Communication Theorv

create our reality then any characteristic of communication I might propose is no more than a fabrication. But this is not quite what is being said, nor is it all that is being said. Yes, we do construct our own reality, but this construction is not mere fantasy. Our constructions depend, however tenuously, on something outside the communicative process in which the construction is done. Our diffi- culty is that while this something outside is not nonexistent, it is ineffable.

Nevertheless, as I shall discuss further below, the ineffability of the relationship between the world and communication does not mean we do not have common references. At the least, in our everyday lives, we are continually able to act as ifwe shared a grasp of the same reality. What this may be is, of course, subject to argument; but it still exists. In the same way I want to argue that I believe I have some grasp of a reality that may be useful to others.

So what we are left with is this: Can I take the concept of communication I have been developing and use it in ways that are profitable for understanding how our communication can expand or limit the human condition? Can this view of communication be used to critique views of communication and communicative practice? To answer these questions, I propose to consider four features of communication generated out of the current framework: constitutiveness, contextualness, diversity, and incompleteness. Constitutiveness Given that knowledge is socially constituted via communication, then communication creates our social world, just as causality could be said to generate a physical one ( H a d , 1983). Communication has self-generating capacities, and these capacities arise out of the very interaction of participants, not out of the properties of their external environment.

As Sless (1986) has pointed out, there are striking parallels between this self-generating proposition for communication and propositions of quantum theory. He cites one physicist, trying to come to terms with the counterintuitive world of quantum mechanics, as saying:

May the universe in some strange sense be “brought into being” by the participation of those who participate? . . . The vital act is the act of participation. “Participator” is the incontrovertible new concept given by quantum mechanics. It strikes down the term “ob- server” of classical theory. . . . It [observing] cannot be done, quantum mechanics says. (Wheeler, Thorne, & Misner, 1973, p. 1273)

In this vital act of participation, we can find ourselves in a rather different place than traditionally thought: “Rather than acting out of an inner plan or schema, we can think of ourselves in our current activities as acting ‘into’ our own present situation” (Shotter, 1986, p. 203). This “acting into” occurs whenever we engage in the communicative process, whether it be to make sense of the world of quantum mechanics or to make sense of our personal relationships. Communica- tive activity, then, is not only self-generating, it is self-specifying. It is self- specifying in the sense that our past activities point to the direction of our present ones. This self-specifying aspect of communication has also been described by earlier authors, including Dewey (1981) and Mead (1934). And, as Shotter

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(1986) demonstrates, the argument can be traced back to Vico writing in the 18th century.

This constitutive characteristic of communication, both its self-generating and self-specifying aspects, has important ramifications for our concept of meaning. Meaning cannot be anything fixed and invariant; rather it is constantly changing with our every act of participation. Meaning is a relational phenomenon that is brought about in the interaction of participants. Mead (1938) proposed an analogous argument when he claimed that there are two characteristics that belong to the term “meaning”- those of participation and communicability. Meaning, for Mead, arises out of an act of participation or joint action that, in some aspects at least, creates a sufficiently shared framework for communicability. This parallels Vico’s account, as presented by Shotter (1986), of the “organized settings” brought about by past participants acting to point to common- places, or affording common reference.

Within this framework both our meanings and our knowledge are socially constituted within the communication process. Communication that affirms this constitutive role would be, according to the metacriterion proposed above, “good” communication. Conversely, communication that denies its own constitutiveness would be classed as “bad.” An excellent example of “bad” communication on this ground of denying constitutiveness can be found in the communication process enacted in courts of law.

In previous articles (Penman, 1987a, b), it has been demonstrated that the adversary system of justice relies on a model of practical reasoning that is analogous to Grice’s (1975) Cooperative Principle. It has also been shown that the words uttered by witnesses in court are taken as having a representational role only (Penman, 1991). The words are seen only as the means for establishing “facts” and these “facts” can only be specific, literal “truths” that the person has directly experienced. There is an insistence that the words be grounded into an objective reality. The slippery nature of words and the problems that can arise when attempts are made to ground meaning into an objective reality can be illustrated in this episode from one court case’:

Barrister (examining): Did Mr Fray come and live with you in the house? Witness (Mrs Fray): Yes, he stayed and he did not stay. He had a girlfriend. Then he

stayed one night with his girlfriend, one night with me.

Barrister (cross-examining): Would it, broadly speaking be correct to say that in that period between 1957 and 1966 that you were living apart from him for about half that period in total?

Witness: I did not live. He lived. He lived two years with a hairdresser woman in Ainslie. Then he lived with this woman what he lives with now and God knows where he lived. Ask-you ask him.

Barrister: Mrs. Fray, you have just referred to, just in your answer then, to a period of two years, as I understand it, between 1957 and 1966 when you and Mr Fray were not living together. Could I get from you the total period of time between 1957 and 1966 when you and Mr Fray were not living together, approximately?

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Witness: When we were not living together was the only time when Mr Fray was running around and living with, carrying prostitutes around or living with someone. Ask Mr Fray. He can give you more answer than I do.

This exchange was problematic for everyone concerned. The requirement of the court for an objective time measure of a relationship was incommensurate with the perspective of Mrs. Fray. The real problematic nature of meaning is also well illustrated in this extract, as is the consequence of denying it on the part of the barrister.

In broad terms, the court treats the communication process as only something instrumental for the more important legal process. This is well illustrated by a comment from one barrister interviewed for the study: “you don’t converse in court, you’re just asking questions and getting answers.” For legal representa- tives, questions and answers are not conversation!

As a consequence of this peculiar role (or nonrole) given to communication in courts, witnesses are also seen as nothing more than an instrument to be used in the legal process. Their active participation in the process is denied, although still real. Thus, while the very process of examination and cross-examination in courts acts to create a story for judgment, the court acts as if reality is being reproduced, not continually generated afresh with each act of participation. This quite clearly denies the constitutive characteristic of communication. Contextualness One of the basic metatheoretical assumptions being followed here is that social knowledge, and thus communication, is historically embedded. Communication is always located in a context-both spatial and temporal-and it is the context that provides the frame for intelligibility of action. Context, however, is no more stable than the particular communication process it is contextualizing. With inevitable changes in context go changes in interpretation of communicative acts, and even communication theory. Communication exists in a reflexive relationship with its context.

It follows that the intelligibility given to any particular communicative action or episode must be seen as subject to infinite revision (Gergen, 1982). The labeling of an act at a particular point in time and in a given structural context is subject to constant revision as the retrospective and emergent contexts change with the process itself. As Gergen (1982) goes on to point out, the implication is that the basis for any particular description of communicative acts is not fundamentally empirical; it relies instead on a weaving of interdependent and continuously modifiable interpretations.

When meaning or intelligibility of action is taken to be immutable over time and/or space, then the critical feature of contextuality is denied. Again, clear examples of this can be found in courts of law. The discourse model imposed by the court assumes that the meaning of an act talked about in court is the same meaning of the act when it occurred in time past. This is illustrated in the common insistence of the court that the witness repeat or say exactly what happened at the time of the incidence under question-as if any retelling pro- duces the same intelligibility as at the time past. The difficulties that ordinary citizens have with doing this can be shown in the following extract:

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Barrister: At the time when you handed the document to the accused, concerning his new position as finance officer, did you say anything to him about his obligations with regard to your company?

Witness: Yes, he would have been told specifically. Barrister: Not what you would have, what you said? Witness: I would have told him that his/ Judge: No, no, do not please say “I would have told him”, say “I did something” or “I

said something”

What is interesting about this example is the direct insistence ghat events in the past must, and can, be talked about in the present as if they had not changed with the context. This example also illustrates how the court assumes it can make sense of a reported utterance without considering it in the context of what the other person also said. Diversity The continually creative and continually modifying nature of communication means that there is a great diversity to communication, or in our interpretations of it. Given that we cannot resort to experience outside our communication to validate our interpretations, then the possibilities are endless. The ontic status of any communicative act is only knowable in the description, not in the act itself. As such, there can be as many descriptions as we, in our participation, are capable of generating.

In a very broad and almost paradoxical sense, we could suggest that better descriptions/interpretations are those that recognize the diversity that is possible. More specifically, we could also suggest that any claim to there being one and only one right interpretation is a bad way of communicating. Perhaps the most commonly experienced form of this “bad” communication is found in marital arguments that proceed from bad to worse on the assumption that each partner’s different claim to interpretation is the right one.

Better descriptions / interpretations also need to recognize that there are no empirical grounds on which to make a claim that any one interpretation is superior to another. It is not possible to say that one interpretation is better than another because it is more real. As there is no empirical base to interpretation, there are no empirical grounds on which to make the claim. We are unable to appeal to fact and, instead, must inexorably return to value. We may wish to say that one interpretation is ,better than another, but can only do so on nonfac- tual grounds, such as moral or aesthetic ones. While this usually does not happen in the example of marital arguments given above, it should in the case of academic ones. With my argument, I am wanting other academic arguments to support their claims in terms of how they might enrich or impoverish the human condition.

A very different but fundamentally important example of the denial of diversity can be found in the imposition of a standard language across diverse cultures. The imposition of English in this regard can only be seen as an extreme example of imperialism. While it may well ease the so-called ‘‘communication barriers,” it also oppresses or eliminates our diverse options for understanding. Languages

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are, in fact, a major source of cultural wealth for humanity and diversity in languages needs to be encouraged rather than minimized. The work of some linguistics in recording and documenting the vast range of languages in the Pacific is an important example of productive work in this regard (e.g., Miihl- hausler, 1988).

Encouraging diversity also has important ramifications for communication theory. Diversity should be encouraged not just of theories but also within theory. Rather than developing a theory or account that specifies one basis for action or one possibility for it, we need to be developing a range of possibilities by which we might account for action. Curiously, this leads us to evaluating certain theories as not as good others-even given the requirement of encouraging diversity. While all theories are to be encouraged, those that then discourage diversity within themselves negate the broad requirement.

With this approach to theory and language development, the link between theory and practice is not via experimentation, as the conventional scientific pathway has it. Instead there is a direct link between conceptual matters and the structure of everyday life. We need to be concerned with specifying the possibilities open to us in theory that we might choose to realize them in practice. Incompleteness The concept of communication developed from the five metatheoretical assumptions incorporates the recognition that neither communication nor the meanings generated are ever complete or even ever finishable. In continually bringing about a new state of affairs, joint participations and the implicated meanings are always emergent and never finished. Meanings are always vague possibilities. Sless (1986) makes a very poignant remark about the unfinished nature of meaning and understanding: “Understanding is the dead spot in our struggle for meaning; it is the momentary pause, the stillness before incomprehension continues” (p. i). This is not to suggest the possibility that meaning could be complete, if only . . . On the contrary, meanings are unfinishable.

This view, however, does not have to lead us to the nihilistic position of the deconstructionists (e.g., Derrida, 1976). From their perspective all attempts at discovering underlying order must inevitably fail, and therefore there is no point in attempting such a search. But from the perspective here, while the meanings implicated in communication are always indeterminate, they are not wholly so in practice. We have the capacity for creating order out of the potential chaos of indeterminacy. The organized settings we are led into by our past acts of participation and implicated meanings act as constraints on the range of possibilities. These constraints that are brought into being provide temporary closure in a possibly unstable and indeterminate social world. While there is the potential for an infinite range of meanings, in practice this is limited by the closure we impose.

In general, good communication theory and practice encourages the open- endedness of communication. This has been the major thrust of Rorty’s (1980) arguments, leading to his injunction that the moral task of the philosopher or social critic is to defend the openness of human conversation. It is also the major thrust underlying some very recent and exciting developments in the area of argumentation. As Billig (1987) points out, the biggest gap in modern social

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theories concerns their lack of attention to argumentation. In part, we could attribute this lack of attention to a preoccupation with a converse concept- cooperation.

A cooperative base is frequently assumed in theories of our social activities, especially the more linguistically based ones (e.g., Grice, 1975). It is also assumed in some of the more recent developments within the paradigm being used here. For example, Gergen (1985) argues that “the process of understanding is the result of an active, cooperative enterprise of persons in relationships” (p. 267). But this assumption of cooperation is not necessary to the broader metatheoretical framework (Penman, 1988). Understanding, of some form or another, can still arise out of active, uncooperative participation. Moreover, if we assume that cooperation is a necessary condition for understanding, then we are unable to account for the substantive role played by the argumentative or controversial dimension in our social life.

Good communication does not have to be cooperative. Indeed, it could be the case that many cooperative efforts lead to a premature closure of the conversation, with the result that a full range of possible options are not explored or diversity encouraged. From Rorty’s (1980) point of view it is far more important to keep the argument going than to finish it.

This leads us to an interesting position. While emphasizing the importance of keeping the argument going, there are very good practical reasons to impose some form of closure, and quite narrow ones in some instances. A good example in point is the closure imposed on our interpretation of traffic lights: It would be very unwise for us to maintain an argument about the meaning of red and green lights at road intersections. In general, some form of closure, however, temporary, is needed for the maintenance of our everyday social life. On the other hand, other forms of closure may well curtail that very same social life. The question is, which points of closure are premature and which forms of closure are too limiting?

Similarly we should consider which points of openness are too extended and which forms of openness are too permissive. An example was suggested to me of a medical situation in which a diagnosis must be made in order to help save the life of a patient: It would be unwise to keep the conversation going while the patient was hemorrhaging. This situation could be extended into the arena of communication practice where, similarly, it may be unwise to maintain an openness of interpretation while a spouse engages in repeated domestic violence. Lines must be drawn, for some very practical reasons at least.

This implies a two-pronged approach to the evaluation of communication theory and practice using this criterion of openness. Those forms of communication theory and practice that allow none of the open-endedness of communication can be classed as bad. Theories and practice that presume the possibility of perfect understanding could be placed in this category. In the very assuming that perfect understanding is possible, the ongoingness and unfinishability of the meaning generation process is denied. On the other hand, those theories and practices that have no closure, when the practical exigencies of the world seem to call for it, are equally bad.

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Conclusions There are many loose threads in the argument developed in this article. But this is to be expected given the metatheoretical assumptions and the exploratory nature of the argument. I have made an endeavor simply to push the argument one step further: to ask, if we take on board these radical new developments in social theory, how can we judge them?

While many issues are underdeveloped in the argument, one issue is clear. If we are to accept the metatheoretical framework, then the moral issue is central. All of our communication practices and all our communication theories have a moral core, albeit often implicit. And all of our communication research involves intervention into this moral core. Just how we might attempt to come to terms with the implications of this has been the thrust of this article.

In exploring possibilities, many other uncertainties have been exposed. But these uncertainties can readily take on a positive light if we treat them as avenues for further exploration. In developing the four criteria for evaluation it was possible to find examples for each. But just how such a set of criteria can be systematically applied has not been addressed; it remains a very open question. If we are to take on board the arguments presented here there is much challenge ahead. Not the least challenge will be how to establish the legitimacy of what we are doing. As the preceding arguments have indicated we cannot use empirical grounds outside of the communication process for establishing the legitimacy of either a description, an interpretation, a theory, or an account, We cannot go out, as it were, into the communicative world and empirically match up our theories with their practice.

As theorists and researchers we are a part of the process into which we are inquiring. Most importantly, we are also part of the creation of that very process. Our accounts or our theories play a self-specifying role. As Shotter (1987) has pointed out, the very self-specifying nature of accounts means that in generating them we also are specifying the evidence required to support or refute them. The evidence does not lie outside the communicative process but within it. This would suggest that the criteria I have proposed for evaluating good communication theory and practice are equally legitimate for evaluating the very article I have written about them.

The criteria for evaluating good communication are also defensible on practical moral grounds. In applying the criteria suggested we are able to make praai- cal moral judgments about how the process affects our human experience, what it affords us in the choices we have available and the opportunities we have to act. For example, I hope I have been able to show that the limited concept of communication operating in courts leads to very limited options for actions by ordinary citizens. I hope I have also been able to show that the concept of communication generated in this framework leads to many more practical options for action. And in recognizing the truly problematic nature of meaning, we are led to the necessity of respecting a wide range of diverse interpretations. If nothing else, it is this that will keep the argument open and going.

But, as implied in the discussion of openness, there are limits. There is a tendency in arguments of this kind and within this framework to be too open,

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and this brings its own problems. While we might want t o respect all opinions and all theories there may be very good practical reasons why we should not. The right to hold any opinion may be sustainable but the implications for practice cannot always be supported morally. In the end, I cannot morally support a theory that has an impoverished representation of the human experience and that, in practice, negates a range of possible actions for improving the human condition.

Robyn Penman is Research Director in the Communication Research Institute of Austral- ia, P.O. Box 8, Hackett ACT 2602, Australia. The author acknowledges Barnett Pearce and Vern Cronen. and her colleague David Sless, f o r their long and productive conversa- tions on the question of evaluation. She is also grateful for the support and the challenges offered by the various reviewers ofthis essay.

Author

The illustrations from court cases and interviews of participants are taken from an unpublished paper prepared by Beth Dobkin while on a University of Massachusetts research student exchange program at the Communication Research Institute of Australia.

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good theory and good practice: an argument in progress

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