Esclanda, Maria Carmela Rachel G.

ENG447: Communication Theory

PhD-English Prof: Claudia Odette J. Ayala, PhD

ENG 447 Communication Theory

Module 1: Introduction and Overview of Communication Theory

Activities/Assessments

1. Do a case analysis on Theory and Research in Communication Consulting.

Please refer to the last page in Chapter 1 of Dainton and Zelley.

Consultant A wanted to conduct a survey on the demands of the

community, while consultant B is depending on a nationwide view of hospitals.
Commonsense theories, or theories-in-use. This type of theory often is created
by an individual’s own personal experiences, or such theories might reflect
helpful hints that are passed on from family members, friends, or colleagues.
They are useful to us and are often the basis for our decisions about how to
communicate.

Consultant A believes that it is not possible to cut the hospital’s costs. The
goal of a customer needs analysis survey is to understand the customers' needs
and their position in the overall market. Furthermore, this makes consultant A a
Social Science because he/she is predicting an outcome to the said solution. To
increase the demand for the hospitals, also means increase of services
rendered. This will be done to increase sales of services. The increase of
customers will augment the hospital’s revenues. In the future, the hospital can
avoid financial problems or even worst bankruptcy. Consultant A shows
deductive thinking. And h4e/she is very particular with the problem of the
hospital.

Consultant B looks at the problem in a general point of view of knowing

the hospital’s strength and weaknesses. He/she shows inductive thinking. This is
an approach in Humanities. This involves open communication to solve a
problem. There are pros and cons to each. The main purpose is to understand
rather that to solve the problem. Though consultant B aims at an ideal way of
solving the problem. It is still vague because at the end of his statement there is
no connecting idea of increasing the hospital’s revenue which is the main
problem. There is no prediction about the future outcome, the goal is only to
understand the problem.
2. Do a critical analysis of the Zen Story which I will provide to you in our e-
classroom.

The Zen story is about a traveling monk who stayed in a temple with two
brothers. The traveler challenged the brothers with a silent debate. If the traveler will
win the debate, he will stay in the temple but if he loose he will leave immediately.
But the elder brother was too tired from studying so his one eyed younger brother
came instead.
Technically, there isn’t any communication because both did not understand
each other. But in terms of the transferring of message yes there is, but
unfortunately it missed the target. An information is successfully sent to the receiver
not knowing of how unclear the message is because of the channel used. There is
an issue about the ambiguity of the message. Furthermore, it is an example of the
Relevance Theory by Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson. Apparently, this is an
explicit/implicit communication this theory explains the receiver’s interpretive choices
which eventually lead to non- or misunderstanding. Relevance Theory is a cognitive
approach to human communication based upon the central claim that human
cognition is geared to the addressees search for relevance in the in-coming
(non)verbal stimuli that they process in a course of a conversational interaction
(Sperber & Wilson,1987). This search for relevance triggers the activation of
hypotheses on the explicit and implicit quality of the stimulus which has to be
processed, and constrains to the eventual choice of a candidate to match the
sender’s intended interpretation.