SOCIO-CULTURAL TRADITION

APOLONIO, JUFANUEL

RUBA, RHEA MAE

SABADO, ALWIN

BSDC 2-2

DR. CHRYSL AVEGEIL N. VALLEJO

Chair, DevCom Department
DC 2120 Professor

A discussion paper presented to the Development Communication Department of College of

Arts and Social Sciences (CASS) - Central Luzon State University (CLSU) as a requirement for
the subject Communication Theory (DC 2120), second
semester of the academic year 2019-2020
 ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Emory “Em” A. Griffin is a well-known Professor Emeritus of Communication at Wheaton

College in Illinois. Before he became a professor, he took a lot of hardships for earning the
bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Michigan, and worked for his M.A.
and Ph.D in communication from Northwestern University. Now, he serves for more than 35
years of teaching and has been chosen Teacher of the Year.

Griffin is also a dedicated author of three applied communication books entitled The
Mind Changers, Getting Together, and Making Friends. He has this interest to study about
development of friendships. Moreover, for having a passion in teaching and writing, Em serves
with Opportunity International, it is an organization that aims to help the people in the
grassroots level, to provide opportunities and transform their lives into better place.

One of his greatest making is to study the grounds of communication theory, and he
able to publish the book entitled A First Look at Communication Theory. This manuscript helped
to have strong and reliable information about Seven Traditions of Communication Theory.

INTRODUCTION

Griffin acknowledges the idea of Robert T. Craig, a communication professor at

University of Colorado, where he introduces the Seven Traditions of Communication Theory. He
study first the field of communication theory and discovered that there was a lot of theories
that are unrelated for having different starting point, method and conclusion. According to
Craig, the field of study must be similar to a pest control device called the Roach Motel that
applied for advertised on television. He emphasizes that “theories check in, but they never
check out.”

Having a grand theoretical overview to sum up all communication study is impossible to

happen and it may lead to confusion if we are always looking for it. However, Craig proposed
that we should view communication as practical discipline to understand that communication
theory is a coherent field. As people are continuously struggling and battling with everyday
problems and practices of communication, the exploration of different types of theory should
be grounded for the reason that if this won’t be suited it may just end up to uncertainty. Craig
states that “all communication theories are relevant to a common practical lifeworld in which
communication is already a richly meaningful term.” The theory of communication should be
study with careful, organize and systematic way. It was not just a piece of cake to deal with and
make assumptions; rather it should be seen as practical discipline. Communication scholars
work hard for it, then found out that the best thinking of practical discipline is posed as humans
interact with each other.

According to Craig, communication is a tool to express your ideas, opinions and

decisions, it will help you to have social interaction, and it will make a way to influence other
people. By these, the actions of humans or other complex being will be understood through
psychological mechanisms, states, and traits, by having interaction with the similar expressions
of other individuals, then it will generates a range of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral
effects. Therefore, Craig propounded a model that summarizes the field of communication into
seven traditions. These are known as the semiotic, phenomenological, cybernetic, socio-
psychological, socio-cultural, critical and rhetorical traditions. We know that each tradition is
having different aspect or specialized area of communication, that’s why we have to study it to
acquire a new concept and recognize their different viewpoints.

Consequently, this paper focuses only on the socio-cultural tradition. Whereas, we aim
to give you its meaning, explain the different ideas came from diverse scholars or thinkers,
discuss its branches and provide a knowledge how it is connected in communication theory and
how can it be applied into researches.
 SOCIO-CULTURAL TRADITION

The socio-cultural tradition can elucidates at the grounds of as people as talk they
produce and reproduce culture. It explains that our view of reality is strongly shaped by the
language we’ve used since we were infants. This tradition valued the power of language, the
things in our heart and deep thoughts can be expressed through words. For that reason, it is
important to raise a child in a good manner and right conduct. At his/her early ages, the parents
should teach them good values and behaviors because it will be the foundation of their entire
living. If the child was built in with adorable characteristics, he/she will able to establish a good
relationship outside the home, as he/she knows how to deal with different people by
respecting and understanding their different views.

The socio-cultural tradition is centered on the creation and enactment of social reality. It
focuses on how we build meanings trough understanding the norms and rules that are worked
out interactively in communication. Through social interaction our identity is constructed
because we are an extension of the groups we belong to. For example, when you spend your
time with someone especially with your group of friends, there’s a great possibility that you
could be like them because you will adopt their attitudes and doings. Moreover, we present our
self like we wish to be perceived and we are product of how people see us. This explains that
you will incline yourself at the standards set by society. Hence, how they perceived us affects
how people act towards us which reaffirms our identity. The people in our surroundings will
remind our real personality, because they will respond based from the way we treated them.
This interprets that from our interaction with the community or social groups we are able to
understand the world, relate to and create reality.

The pioneers of socio-cultural tradition are the professor of linguistics named Edward
Sapir & his student Benjamin Lee Whorf, both from University of Chicago. They formulated
premises entitled Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis of Linguistic Relativity , states that the structure of
culture’s language shapes what people think and do. It is a principle claiming that the
composition of language affects its speaker’s world view or cognition. This depicting that the
perceptions of humans are relative to their spoken language. In general, it is the relation of
language and thought, and clarifies that language structures our perception of reality.

From the viewpoints of contemporary socio-cultural theorists, it suggests that language

should be grant for more power. This will gratify through the process of communication that
“reality is produced, maintained, repaired, and transformed.” The formation of reality depends
upon how human will create information to build relationships in groups, society, and cultures.
People must sustain their affiliation by valuing different stands in able to gather new concept
and knowledge which may help them to fix and change their way of living into a better place. It
stands for the active voice that persons-in-conversation co-construct their own social worlds. In
addition, the time when the world will be collided the purpose of socio-cultural tradition will be
recognize by the community because it will be the bridge to connect the cultural gap that exists
between “us” and “them.”

Furthermore, Patricia Sias a communication professor at Washington State University

studied about friendships and used socio-cultural approach. From her learning, she writes that
relationship is not an entities external to the relationship partners, but are mental creations
that depend on communication for their existence and form. It means that having an affiliation
is not a separate matter in reverence to relationship partners because being associated and
committed to someone happens or exists through communication depending on different form.
She studied the failing workplace friendships by gathering different stories of 25 people. First,
they have different status in workplace and real life living. This dissimilarity doesn’t obstruct to
build their friendships, but what destroyed their relationships are the personal problems,
distracting life events, conflicting expectations, betrayal, and promotion. Their friendship start
to sour by using indirect communication, like not doing the usual things together and stop
asking them personal information even small talks about movies or sports were no longer
discussed. Sias understand that if relationship constituted in communication they are also
changed through communication. Simply means that the foundation of relationship is
communication, whereas friendship can be formed and dissolved in an organizational setting.

The scenario above illustrates how powerful the communication is, by using language.
This explains that in the socio-cultural tradition the reality is constructed through a process of
communicating in group, society and cultures.

BRACHES OF SOCIO CULTURAL TRADITION

Symbolic Interactionism

The way people relate to things is determined by what meaning these things have for
them. These things come to have meaning for the person through social interaction. I t means
that people developed and rely upon in the process of social interaction, and how people
impose on objects, event, and behavior.

In a given scenario, our action will depend upon how we interpret the meaning. For
example, the physical appearance of a woman from her face, hair and skin color, this will be the
basis on how other people will have social interaction towards her. The man seems to also
confer upon the woman an immigrant status due to her race, which leads him to ask her the
question “Where are you from?” Thus, meaning is the product of social interaction between
people.

As a human and as members of a society, we learned to understand through our

interactions with symbol, including letter of our language that make up words. Another
example is the word "rainbow", literally it was being understood through its physical
appearance, specifically the color, but over time its meaning and symbol can be change in our
culture. Once, it was a Christian's symbol of hope, as God place a rainbow in the sky after a
great flood, they believed that there was new beginning to live. However, in today popular
culture, the rainbow is pretty universally recognized as a symbol of the LGBTQ community. At
one time, as this change was occurring, there was not a consensus regarding the meaning of
the rainbow.

Based on the theory of symbolic interactionism, communication is clear when a society

has consensus around what a symbol means. When consensus does not exist then
communication becomes more problematic.
Social Constructionism

Knowledge is constructed through social interaction; this explains why language is more
important in the nature of the world (reality).

Social constructionism is a theory of knowledge that studies the development of jointly

constructed understanding of the world that from the basis for shared assumptions about
reality. The theory centers on the notion that meaning are improved in coordination with
others, rather than individually. It questions human and society about how they define the
reality. Therefore, social constructs can be different based on the society and the events
surrounding the time period in which they exist. An example of a social construct is money or
the concept of currency, as people in society have agreed to give it importance/value.

This theory is that people developed knowledge of the world in a social context, and
that much of what we perceive as reality depends on shared assumptions. It states that
meaning and knowledge are socially constructed.

Socio-linguistics

Socio-linguistics portrays the way in which language is used depends on the cultural or
social setting and meaning is not neutral but rather social and cultural.

Sociolinguistics is defined as the study of how the people around you and your heritage
can change the way you speak. This is the branch of linguistic that analyzed the effects of social
and cultural factor within a speech community upon its language pattern. Sociolinguistic
research has raised awareness of the central role of language and power in interactions
between individuals and groups who have a different cultural, and perhaps linguistic,
background.

It is the study which is concerned with the relationship between language and the
context that is used. In other words, it examines the relationship between language and
society. It depicts that we people speech differently in different social context.

Philosophy of language
 “The meaning of language depends on its use." It is a name of subject matter within the
philosophy, it addresses the problem/questions how do words relate to reality, what is the
nature of meaning, reference, logical necessity.

In relation to the philosophy of language, what is the importance of language? Language

has a big role in building or in making experiences and in forming of social relationships that we
regard as characteristically human would be impossible without language. Because language is
really are what distinguishes us from anything else from anther form of life.

Ethnography

Ethnography is the discipline of observing particular groups of people in which a certain

meaning is generated. It focuses on how that group communicates, the words they use to
communicate and what those words mean to them.

It is used in any interpretive research. This is a method or way in observing the

community without disrupting them to really see the reality. The intent of this is to know what
is happening in the community or group of people with one culture in reality. Also, it has a
purpose to understand and explain what is the reality in that specific area.

Ethnomethodology

This is the application of the belief in how social interaction is generated at a particular
point in time. In order to explore this microbehaviours are studied in real life situations.

It is the study of methods that use by people in understanding and producing social
order in which they live. It also provide processes that used in ethnographic studies to produce
accounts of people methods, in negotiating in everyday situations. Moreover, it questions
about how social order is produced in through the processes of social interaction.

REFERENCES
Griffin, E. (2012). A first look at communication theory. Retrieved from
http://rosalia.mercubuana-yogya.ac.id/wp-
content/uploads/2016/04/ebooksclub.org__A_First_Look_at_Communication_Theory___
8th_Edition_.pdf on February 18, 2020.

Tora, J. (2014). Socio-cultural Tradition. Retrieved from

https://torajoypatrick.wordpress.com/2013/10/07/socio-cultural-tradition/amp/ on
February 18, 2020.