MUTED GROUP THEORY

According to Griffin (2009), muted group are those people with little power who have trouble giving voice to their perceptions because they must re-encode their thoughts to make them understood in the public sphere (p. 455). According to Kramarae and other feminist theorists, women’s words are discounted in our society and their thoughts are devalued. The man constructed language “aids in defining, depreciating and excluding women” (p. 454).

For example:

The image above shows how the men are keeping their ego by asking her to only give support when she asked them if she could be of any help.

Reference:

Griffin, E. (2009). A first look at communication theory. (7^th ed). New                      York: The McGraw-Hill Companies.

GENDERLECT THEORY

Griffin (2009) defined genderlect as “a term suggesting that masculine and feminine styles of discourse are best viewed as two distinct cultural dialects” (p. 430). Tannen in her book You just don’t understand stated that “male-female conversation is cross-cultural communication” (Griffin, 2009, p.429). She added on that miscommunications occur all the time between men and women without realising that they are in a cross-cultural encounter because the effect is rather insidious.

According to Tannen, she distinguished the women’s need for human connection whilst the men like independence and would rather compete their way up the hierarchy to claim a status, “Girls and women feel that it is crucial that they be liked by their peers, a form of involvement that focuses on symmetrical connection. Boys and men feel it is crucial that they be respected by their peers, a form of involvement that focuses on asymmetrical status” (Griffin, 2009, p. 432).

For example:

The above video shows a short clip taken from A Walk to Remember which supports Tannen statement of how women seek for connection and men rather keep themselves unattached.

According to Tannen, women talk more than men in private conversations and when it comes to telling a story, women tend to express their desire for community by telling stories about others or they are the character in their own narrative, these women rather describe themselves as foolish than smart. Whereas men tend to tell jokes when they tell a story.

When it comes to listening, a woman would hold eye contact, nod heads and react with an uhmm, right or yeah. Whereas for man being concerned with status, such overt style of listening mean I agree with you. Even when it comes to asking questions, women do so to establish connection where it’s their cue of telling that they’re open for a good chat but for men, they’d make the speaker seem wishy-washy. Men are also more comfortable with conflict and would less likely hold themselves back.

Reference:

Griffin, E. (2009). A first look at communication theory. (7^th ed).                               New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies.

UNCERTAINTY REDUCTION THEORY

Charles Berger noted that “the beginning of a personal relationships are fraught with uncertainties”. Uncertainty Reduction Theory (URT) focuses on how human communication is used to gain knowledge and create understanding (Griffin, 2009, p. 125). According to Whaley & Samter (2009), people can manage uncertainty that they have about others through communicating and that talking will help us answer our questions and find other means of coping with uncertainty (p. 224).

Berger added on that there are three conditions which act as a booster for us to reduce uncertainty about the other person: anticipation of future interaction (we know we will see them again), incentive value (they have something we want) and deviance (they act in a weird way). He believes that out purpose of communicating is to “make sense” out of our interpersonal world (Griffin, 2009, pp. 125-126).

According to Berger, on our first meeting with a person, we will be facing two types of uncertainty: 

- Behavioural questions -  which is often followed by procedural protocols in easing the behavioural uncertainty can cause

- Cognitive questions – aimed to discover what is unique about the other person as an individual

He also proposes a series of axioms (self evident truths that require no additional proof) which are central to his concept of uncertainty and eight key variables of relationship development:

Axiom 1: Verbal Communication – if the amount of interaction between strangers increases, the level of uncertainty between them will decrease. As uncertainty decreases, verbal communication will increase.

Axiom 2: Nonverbal Warmth - as nonverbal warmth increases on the first meeting, the uncertainty level will decrease.

Axiom 3: Information Seeking – information seeking behaviour increases when there’s a high level of uncertainty. The information seeking behaviour will decrease when there’s a decline in uncertainty.

Axiom 4: Self disclosure – high levels of uncertainty in a relationship cause decreases in the intimacy level of communication content. Low levels of uncertainty produce high levels of intimacy.

Axiom 5: Reciprocity – high levels of uncertainty produce high rates of reciprocity. Low levels of uncertainty produce low levels of reciprocity.

Axiom 6: Similarity – similarities between persons reduce uncertainty, while dissimilarities produce increases in uncertainty.

Axiom 7: Liking – increases in uncertainty level produce decreases in liking; decreases in uncertainty produce increases in liking.

Axiom 8: Shared Networks – shared communication networks reduce uncertainty, while lack of shared networks increases uncertainty.

Berger’s message plans to cope with uncertain responses

1.      Seeking information – passive strategy, active strategy and interactive strategy

2.      Choosing plan complexity – a characteristic of a message plan based on the level of detail it provides and the number of contingencies it covers

3.      Hedging – use of strategic ambiguity and humour to provide a way for both parties to save face when a message fails to achieve its goal.

4.      The hierarchy hypothesis – the prediction that when people are thwarted in their attempts to achieve goals, their first tendency is to alter lower level elements of their message

For example:

The above image is an English novel adaptation movie which tells the story of a girl named Georgia and how she ended up in a relationship with Robbie who has just moved to Eastbourne. Georgia first saw Robbie on the first day of school and became instantly attracted to him. She and her friends went to spy on Robbie and his brother right after school while they were exploring the new place (passive strategy) to see what the two cute brothers were like (axiom 3: information seeking). Georgia set up a plan to get closer to Robbie by pretending to Robbie that her cat Angus went missing since she noticed Robbie likes cat (interactive strategy). While searching for Angus, Georgia asked Robbie about him, why did he move to Eastbourne and so on and in return Robbie asked her questions as well (axiom 4: self-disclosure and axiom 5: reciprocity). They found out that they share the same taste in music when Robbie told her that he played in band other than having the same interest in cats (axiom 6: similarity).

References:

Griffin, E. (2009). A first look at communication theory. (7^th ed). New                 York: The McGraw-Hill Companies.

Whaley, B. B., & Samter, W. (2009). Explaining communication:                         contemporary theories and exemplars. Retrieved from http://books.google.com.bn/books? id=58elr6iOOxsC&printsec=frontcover&dq=explaining+communication+-+contemporary+theories+and+exemplers&hl=ms&sa=X&ei=vhOLT-v4CsTZrQe9rpnTCw&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=explaining%20communication%20-%20contemporary%20theories%20and%20exemplers&f=false

COMMUNICATION ACCOMODATION THEORY

Communication Accomodation Theory (CAT) is theory founded by a Welsh psychologist named Howard Giles. He claimed that people coming from a different ethnic or cultural groups tend to speak in a way that they accommodate each other in order to gain mutual approval (Griffin, 2009, p. 387).

“Communication Accomodation Theory provides a wide ranging framework aimed at predicting and explaining many of the adjustments that individuals make to create, maintain, or decrease social distance in interaction. It explores the different ways in which we accommodate our communication, our motivations for doing so and the consequences” (Whaley & Samter, 2009, p. 325). Basically, the theory explains how our way of communicating with another person affect the way we speak so that the other person will be able to understand what’s been communicated to them and so both are clearly on the same line.

According to Whaley and Samter (2009), communications is used to indicate individuals attitudes toward each other and this becomes a barometer of the level of social distance between them. The constant movement toward and away from others, by changing one’s communicative behaviour is referred to as accommodation (Whaley & Samter, 2009, p. 326). There are two strategic forms that people use in accommodating their communication: convergence and divergence (Griffin, 2009, p. 388).

Griffin (2009) defined convergence as “a strategy by which you adapt your communication behaviour in such a way as to become more similar to another person” (p. 388). Whereas divergence means “a communication strategy of accentuating the differences between yourself and another person” (p. 389).

For example:

Harold and Kumar is a good example to explain the convergence strategy. It is obvious from the image that they are both of different races where Harold is a Korean while Kumar is an Indian. However to achieve mutual understanding both opt to speak in English.

The image above is an example of divergence strategy. The girl is avoiding eye contact and looking away from the camera.

References:

Griffin, E. (2009). A first look at communication theory. (7^th ed).                               New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies.

Whaley, B. B., & Samter, W. (2009). Explaining communication:                             contemporary theories and exemplars. Retrieved from    http://books.google.com.bn/books?id=58elr6iOOxsC&printsec=frontcover&dq=explaining+communication+-+contemporary+theories+and+exemplers&hl=ms&sa=X&ei=vhOLT-v4CsTZrQe9rpnTCw&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=explaining%20communication%20-%20contemporary%20theories%20and%20exemplers&f=false