2.1. Theoretical focuses and concepts for the study

Before highlighting the contributions of each of the three theoretical currents in this text, we must recall the central assumptions or ideas of each one briefly. Firstly, the term Symbolic Interactionism was coined by Herbert Blumer in 1938. The author proposed three basic premises for this approach: 1) People act on the objects of their world and interact with people based on the meanings that objects and people have for them; that is, based on symbols; 2)These meanings are the product of social interaction, fundamental for constituting individuals and the social production of meaning; and 3) People select, organise, reproduce and transform the meanings in interpretative processes according to their expectations-on themselves and others-and the purposes of interaction (Blumer, 1969).

On the other hand, Alfred Schütz’s Phenomenological Sociology, which is shown here, is inspired by the phenomenology tradition, whose fundamental problem is the question of sociability as a superior form of intersubjectivity. Schütz posed a crucial question, where and how are the meanings of social action formed? In his proposal, the emphasis is neither on the social system nor on the functional relationships that occur in life in society, but on the interpretation of the meanings of the world (Lebenswelt) and the actions and interactions of social subjects. The known world and intersubjective experiences shared by the subjects and the signs and indications for interpreting the diversity of symbols are obtained. Schütz’s approach starts from the need to analyse the intersubjective relationships from the social interaction networks (Schütz, 1962). As Schütz states,

As we live in the world, we live with others and for others, and we orient our lives to them. By living them as others, as contemporaries and congeners as predecessors and successors, by uniting ourselves with them in everyday activity and work, by influencing them and receiving their influence in turn, by doing all these things, we understand others’ behaviour and assume that they understand ours (Schütz, 1962: 39).

Thus, being in the world means communicating with others and interacting with others in phenomenological sociology. Every subject communicates to constitute himself/herself as such, and every act of communication involves putting manifest acts in the external world into action, which others must interpret and understand.

Finally, the Theory of Communicative Action proposed by Jürgen Habermas formulates “a theory of argumentation, social theory and of the public space which, from the approach of the linguistic turn, has made the formulation of intersubjective recognition possible through pretensions of universal validity” (Fernández, Millán, and Rizo, 2017: 140). The communicative rationality proposed by Habermas is based on the notion that intersubjectivity is founded on consensus by recognising the implementation of the pretensions of validity, where the participants, in a situation of symmetry, freely choose and exercise different acts of speech. The author states that “by acting communicatively, subjects are always understood within the horizon of a world of life. Their world of life is made up of fundamental convictions, more or less diffused, but always problematic” (Habermas, 1987: 84).

The specific contributions of these three theoretical currents to the definition of communication will be summarised below—[Table 1. Conceptions of Communication in Symbolic Interactionism, Phenomenological Sociology, and the Theory of Communicative Action].