Aspects of Communication & Culture Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Aspects of Communication & Culture - Essay Example 63). Other people such as Stahl (2011, p. 1) and Goldkuhl (2003), among others, have different theories. This essay is an analysis of a telephone conversation between Michael and Prinze, based on communication analysis’ theoretical concepts and features of communication. Michael and Prinze’s Profile and their Background This is a telephone conversation between two close friends; Michael in his early fifties and Prinze in his late forties. One of the participants (Prinze) was observed throughout the recording for body language and gestures. These two interlocutors have known each other for more than ten years and share similar back grounds and interests. Also both interlocutors were born and have spent most of their lives in East London although their cultural and ethnic backgrounds are very different; Prinze is an English speaking cockney born and raised in London with a Pakistani parentage, whilst Michael is a native English speaking cockney. Each conversant is calling from the comfort of their home and from different towns; Mohammed lives in Luton and Michael in East London. Michael is recovering after a shoulder operation, whilst Prinze has just got home after a walk in the park. Both the interlocutors had not spoken or seen each other for more than a couple of months, but there had been regular communication between them by text messaging (SMS). The purpose of the call from Prinze to Michael was to get an update on how Michael was doing and also to discover if he had received the forwarded mail Prinze had sent him earlier. A transcription of the conversation between the two is given in the Appendix. Analysis Based On Theories and Main Communication Features Theories There are different theories of communication and theoretical concepts used in communication analysis. Just as noted Different authors have different views about these theories. Stahl has described nine categories of communication theories as listed by Little John (1999); cyberneti cs, semiotics, conversational analysis, message reception, socio-cultural approach, message production, symbolic interaction, phenomenological hermeneutics and critical theory (2011, p. 1). Littlejohn and Foss have eight theories; all described in the introduction (2007, p. 63). Goldkuhl (2003), on the other hand, considers the theories in the Language Action Perspective. The author notes that there are two theoretical concepts of communication representation approaches that are within the named perspective. These are; that there are predefined patterns in which communication is always organized as found in conversational analysis, and that language use can be considered as action as found in speech act theory (Goldkuhl, 2003, p. 51). In this case, two of the theoretical concepts will be explained with reference to Prinze and Michael’s conversation. These are; conversational analysis and speech act theory. Conversational Analysis It is the systemic analysis of human talk-in-i nteractions (Hutchby & Wooffitt, 2008). Conversational analysis’ theoretical concept is based on the view that conversations have predesigned structures. According to Psathas, telephone conversations open with a caller, who in this case, knows whoever he/she is calling. This is then followed by a response from the recipient who may know the caller or not. If the recipient does not know the caller, the next response will be