150 | nº 30, pp. 145-163 | doxa.comunicación
January-June of 2020
Intersubjective communication: from classic approaches to the incorporation of body and emotions...
ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978
Table 1: Conceptions of Communication in Symbolic Interactionism, Phenomenological Sociologyand Communicative Action Theory
Current
Symbolic interactionism
Phenomenology and Socio-Phenomenology
Theory of Communicative Action
Dominant perspective
Socio-psychological
Philosophical
Philosophical and social-critical
The conception of the subject
Actor in constant interaction with others, with an enormous interpretative capacity, which constitutes their identity based on his/her ability to conceive himself/herself as an object and a mirror of the other.
A human being who looks at the world from a natural, pre-theoretical attitude, determined by his/her biography and immediate experience and who recognises other subjects as analogous to him/her. To be oriented to others.
A rational and free subject, capable of communicating within the framework of an ideal speaking community based on arguments orientated towards the search for truth, generating the necessary consensus that guarantees collective action; oriented toward emancipation,
The conception of the world
Symbolic world, built from the collective meanings emanating from daily interactions between subjects.
The world of life as a sphere of reality in which people participate in specific and standardised ways with a natural attitude.
Objective, social, and subjective simultaneously, in constant tension with the social system. Its rationalisation requires an increase in the rationality of communicative action.
Definition of communication
The basis for the social actors’ construction of meanings on the environment and themselves.
The raw material for constituting the social. The basis for shaping meanings about the environment by the subjects.
Communicative action aimed at understanding and comprehension, providing the necessary consensus for the establishment of a social system.
Source: created by the author
As can be seen, the three perspectives grant the subject a fundamental role as a constructor of meanings about the world. However, in the case of Jürgen Habermas’s Theory of Communicative Action, the subject is a social actor responsible for their own emancipation. The author introduces the theme of understanding from an ethical-critical point of view, which can be understood as the ultimate goal of communication, the key to building the necessary consensus that can allow a group to act for the common good. This role of the subject, as an active being in the social and political fabric, is not so clearly observed in Symbolic Interactionism and Phenomonelogocical Sociology. Since these perspectives start from a more conservative or static understanding of the subject as the subject is a social actor in interaction with others with whom he/she constructs daily meanings about the world of life that they experience collectively.
