Johannesen Chapter 8: Interpersonal, Communication and Small Group Discussion

Interpersonal communication, or small group communication makes me laugh. Has anyone else seen someone walking down the street for example, that you just want to avoid? I have done this before. I have even gone as far to change my normal walking route around school, just to avoid certain people.

I am not doing this to be rude, but some people can be awkward to talk to, silent, or maybe the opposite. Maybe they are loud, talk too much, or say random things.

In chapter 8, Johannesen quotes philosopher H. P Grice with his ethics for everyday conversation. Grice says that the four main types of ethical guidelines for conversations include:

• Quanitity: presenting as much information that is required without saying too much
• Quality: only speaking in truth and saying things that have evidential support
• Relation: making sure what we say makes sense in the context of conversation
• Manner: being brief, to the point, and avoiding intentional ambiguity

With certain people, they may violate one or more of these ethical codes. For example, for the person who talks too much or talks about unrelated topics, he or she would be violating the relation and manner ethical codes.

But what about me. Surely, I violate these codes sometimes as well. Have you ever been in a situation (I certainly have), where you have a really good point or thing to say, but unfortunately the conversation has moved on. Instead of letting the topic go, you throw it out there? Sometimes it gets the conversation back on track, other times, it just confuses people.

Has this ever happened to you?

Or has the opposite happened? Have you dealt with people who just don't carry conversation well?

Two nights ago, David and I came home to the fire department outside our apartment. Going up to someone to ask what had happened, the woman looked up, said someone's cooking caused the smoke alarms to go off, and we were waiting for the "all clear." While David returned to the car for a moment, I tried to make small talk with the woman by introducing David and myself. In response, she was texting the entire time, and only looked up to say, "I'm Heather."

It was an uncomfortable and awkward situation. I tried to make small talk, be friendly towards a neighbor we had not met, but instead, she looked down at her phone the whole time.

In our case, Heather was demonstrating "topical avoidance" according to Stanley Deetz (141-143). Topical avoidance meant she was avoiding the topic by being unwilling to talk about her emotions and perceptions over the event.

Has normal face-to-face communication between people, or meeting people in a face-to-face place been replaced by social networking and meeting people over the Internet?

Will face-to-face communication eventually be nonexistent? Does the Internet have that much control over us, or will it someday?