Semiotic Paradigms of Self and Person:The Perspectives Model of Communicology as the Logic Foundation of Human Science

Originally proposed by Timothy Leary, the perspective model of interpersonal communication analyzes semiotic comportment at three levels of exchange: Public Communication(Level I) where a person's overt verbal and nonverbal behavior is observed by both the Self and Other in a given situation; Conscious Descriptions(Level II) which are the perceived verbal contents of messages and codes exchanged by the Self and Other; Private Symbolization(Level III) which consists of projective, indirect, imaginative content of the Self and Other as attributed to both the Self and Other. As discussed by Wilden, the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan uses the simple terminology of the Real, the Imaginary, and the Symbolic to refer to the respective discourse levels. Subsequent communicologists have adopted the terminology of(1) Direct Perspective,(2) Meta-Perspective, and(3) Meta-Meta-Perspective. The perspectives model thus becomes an applied example of semiotic phenomenological method which progressively moves from(1) Description, to(2) Reduction, and to(3) Interpretation in the analysis and functional specification of human communication. These combinatory eidetic(verbal) and empirical(nonverbal) semiotic codes depict cultural preferences thereby defining the Self in theory and practice.

Intentionality as Creativity: A Communicological Critique of Muddle-Headed Mindfulness in Pragmatics of Human Communication

Jürgen Ruesch and Gregory Bateson were dedicated to the research paradigm that asserts the successful Axiom of Communication Theory: The Intentionality Code of "You Both Can And Cannot Communicate"(Make up Your Mind and Change Your Mind—You can Learn!). Ruesch and Bateson's axiomatic view of Codes critiques the failed Intentionality Messages, i.e., the failed Postulate of Information Theory: The Behavior of "You Cannot Not Communicate" raised to the status of a fetish in the American speech communication discipline by the publication of Paul Watzlawick, Janet Helmick Beavin, and Don J. Jackson, Pragmatics of Human Communication: A Study of Interactional Patterns, Pathologies, and Paradoxes(New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Co., Inc., 1967). Although dedicated "To Gregory Bateson, Friend and Mentor", this book(hereafter cited as WBJ) is not co-authored by Bateson and its publication was vigorously opposed by him for many reasons, including the argument of the present analysis that shows a fundamental misunderstanding and gross misapplication of Information Theory(Shannon & Weaver) in place of Communication Theory(Weiner & Bateson) and the mathematical logic(Edmund Husserl & Bertrand Russell) upon which the distinction is based.

The Aesthetics of Communication: Poetic Iconicity, the Voice of Enunciation, and the Art of Conversation

The analysis argues for a revised classification of discourse within mainstream communication scholarship that recognizes only content and relational elements.Using Posner’s(1982)semiotic work on poetic communication and drawing from Peirce’s trichotomy of signs,we see that an aesthetic dimension of a First subsists within all events of discourse.The significant effects/affects of Firstness transpire along a continuum depending upon the operative interpretants in a given context.Taking the voice of enunciation as a phonetic exemplar of an extra-linguistic aesthetic,I then examine the functions of poetic iconicity provided by Brandt’s(2013)typology,discussing it in relation to Peirce’s triadic structure and the art of conversation.Clarifying the semiotic and phenomenological affordances for each component of discourse provides a communicological perspective.Overall,such a treatment lends theoretical support for the commonsense assumption that conversation is an art form.Conversation potentializes aesthetic experience in Dewey’s sense of the term.