Abstract
Reconsidering earlier attempts to define communication, this article argues that communication and speech communication are better understood as fields of study than as unified disciplines with a single core. It uses a Wittgensteinian model of overlapping strands to explain how diverse specialties such as rhetoric, television production, phonetics, advertising, organizational communication, nonverbal communication, and oral interpretation can belong to the same field without sharing one common element. The article rejects narrow definitions that would exclude legitimate areas of inquiry and instead proposes identifying enduring questions that connect speech communication specialties. It contributes to field definition by framing coherence as a network of interrelated problems, practices, and applications rather than a single disciplinary essence.
Recommended Citation
Clevenger, Theodore Jr.
(1983)
"Toward a Definition of Communication: Speech Communication in the Context of the Field of Communication,"
Association for Communication Administration Bulletin: Vol. 46, Article 7.
Available at:
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/aca/vol46/iss1/7
