ABSTRACT
Within the discipline of communication studies in the US, the relationship between transmission theories of communication and theories of sociocultural communication has long been a turbulent one. On the one hand, there are those that see communication as a process through which messages are transmitted from sender to receiver with varying degrees of skill, fidelity, and accuracy. From this perspective communication is something that we do; some of us do it well and some of us not so well. Messages are found in the world of an objective reality about which we are invited to communicate as soon as we have found the optimal verbal and non-verbal resources to best do so. When communication goes badly we often use the instance to encourage or discourage some strategies for future communicative activity depending on whether or not something was lacking or perhaps we felt we were excessive thus laying a foundation upon which more tried and tested ways of communicating are employed. On the other hand, there are those that see messages as an expression of communication. Communities of speakers will, in their own distinctive and particular ways, develop optimal strategies for the necessary performance of communicative acts, events, and styles. Carried in these performances are messages about a speech culture at work. How interlocutors orient to, organize, and define features of their communication, relational bonds, and identity is of central interest to those that take the view that communication is a sociocultural outcome.
