ABSTRACT

Every known language includes within it ways it can comment about itself, just as every known way of speaking includes ways of speaking about itself. The practice introduced here-about meta-communicative vocabularies and their use-applies similarly to communication theories as each theory offers a special way of speaking about communication. Each such way is always anchored with its toe-holds in the social and cultural communication practices from whence it came. Language about language, ways of speaking about itself, communication theories about communication all are thus parasitic upon the routine communication of its originating place, just as the insights a social theory offers contribute, one hopes, to a better understanding of social practices.