.,. ARTICLE

Organizational discourse andcommunication: the progeny of Proteus

29!

11GUOWEI JIANCLEVELAND STATE UNIVERSITY, USA

AMY M. SCHMISSEUR

UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS, USA

GAil T. FAIRHURST

UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI, USA•

•

Discourse& Communication

Copyright @ 2008SAGEPublications.

(LosAngeles. London. New Delhiand Singapore)

INWw.sagepubl ications.comVol 2(3): 299-320

10.1177/175048130809'912

ABSTRACT As VanDijk(2007) proposed in the nrst issue of Discourse

and Communication, the main purpose of this journal is to bridgethe twocross-disciplinesof communication and discourse studies. Giventhis goal,this article sought to help clear the ground for such interdisciplinarydevelopmentby investigating how organizational researchers use theterms 'discourse' and 'communication' and cast discourse-communicationrelationships. Byreviewing 112 organizational discourse studies frommajorjournals in communication, organizational studies, and interdisciplinaryjournals published between 1981 and 2006, this study identifieddiverseconceptualizations of these basic concepts. The findings help dispelsome ofthe misunderstandings that scholars from one research fieldmay possesstoward the other and sort through some, if not all. the confusions regardingthe terms 'discourse', 'communication', and their relationships.

KEY W 0 RD S: communication. discourse, discourse analysis, organizationa!

communication, organizational discourse

There is little question that the terms 'discourse' and 'communication' enjoy widepopularity in the social sciences today witness the birth of this journal, Discourseand Communication. However, like the Greek sea-god Proteus, both terms arecapable of assuming a variety of forms. This is especially so in the organizationaland communication sciences with its own sub-discipline of organizationalcommunication (Mumby, 2007) and given the popularity of organizationaldiscourse analyses (Grant et aI., 2004). Yet. it is precisely this variety that deservesour attention. Some organizational discourse scholars who study communicationdo not admit to it, and some organizational communication scholars find themultifarious meanings of discourse to be confusing and ambiguous. Scholars whoprefer one of the two terms will react to the other with ambivalence or disdain,while others seek to depict their complementarity. For still others, discourse

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and communication are destined to remain 'floating signifiers' (Laclau, 1990;Laclau and Mouffe, 1985), 'floating' as it were with each new wave of theory,setting, or analyst. How we arrived at such a turn of events is certainly worthyof an archeological dig, but a Foucauldian history of the present also mandatesa fuller examination of current practices.

In this study, we explore the multiple meanings of the terms 'discourse' and'communication' and their relationship(s) in a survey of journals linked to theorganizational setting. We are deliberately narrowing the scope of inquiry tothe organizational context because of its uniqueness and growing volume ofliterature around the two terms. In line with the spirit of this journal (Van Dijk,2007), we hope to sort through some of the confusion and facilitate futuredialogue among scholars of organizational communication and discourse. Asauthors, we are all from the discipline of organizational communication whovalue discourse analytic work in all of its various forms. We begin with somebackground on both terms before describing our study.

Background of organizational discourse andcommunication

ORGANIZATIONAL DISCOURSE

Since the wave marking the 'linguistic turn' surged through social sciences a fewdecades ago, organization studies have undergone profound changes. The rise ofdiscourse studies partly anchors this paradigmatic shift from an almost exclusiveemphasis on positivistic research towards multi-paradigm work inclusive ofinterpretive, critical, and dialogic approaches (Deetz, 1996; Fairhurst, 2007;Grant et aI., 1998; Mumby and Clair, 1997). A wide variety of theoretical cur­rents contributes to this shift, including but not limited to pragmatics (Austin,1962; Searle, 1995), ethnomethodology (Garfinkel, 1967), semiotics (Peirce,1931), post-structuralism (Foucault, 1983), post-modernism (Derrida, 1982),and rhetorical theories (e.g. Burke, 1969a, 1969b) (see Putnam and Fairhurst,2001 for a comprehensive review). In organization studies, what galvanizesscholars from various traditions and disciplines is the role that discourse playsin the process of organizing and in re-theorizing a wide range of organizationalphenomena previously rooted in cognitive psychology or functionalist sociology.Fairhurst (2007) presents one of the obvious examples of this by contrasting'discursive leadership' from 'leadership psychology', the latter reflecting anindividualist and mostly quantitative approach to leadership research while theformer focuses on 'how leadership is achieved or "brought off" in discourse' (p. 5).Common to discourse studies are the assumptions that discourse is constitutiveof organizations (Fairhurst and Putnam, 2004) and that discourse is action(Gronn,1983).

Organizational discourse research is also conceptually and methodologic­ally diverse. For instance, an ethnomethodologically informed conversationanalysis (e.g. Boden, 1994) would treat discourse as talk-in-interaction, focusingupon turn-taking and the membership categories invoked and fashioned.

Jian et al.: Organizational discourse and communication

However, a Foucauldian discourse study (e.g. Deetz, 1998) would seek patternsof thoughts and socially sanctioned practices as discourse and investigate itsformation and effects in particular historical and political contexts. Alvessonand Kiirreman (2000: 1126) rightfully characterized the state of organizationaldiscourse studies suggesting,

There is a wide array of ways of using the term discourse in social science andorganization studies. It is often difficult to make sense of what people mean bydiscourse. In many texts, there are no definitions or discussions of what discoursemeans.

This situation is, at a minimum, perplexing. On the one hand, the multiplicityof meaning around discourse demonstrates the versatility and potential forcreative theorization and empirical work. On the other hand, it may lead toconfusion, compromise theoretical and methodological rigor, and create hurdlesfor healthy dialogue, meta-analysis, and, ultimately, the accumulation and appli­cation of knowledge engendered from these studies.

The present study builds upon Alvesson and Karreman's (2000) conceptionof little 'd' and big 'D' discourse.1 Little 'd' discourse refers to talk and text inlocal social interaction. Studies of this type of discourse focus on or '[is] sensitiveto' (Alvesson and Karreman, 2000: 1133) detailed language in use and talk­in-interaction in specific social contexts. Analysts examine both the 'doing' or'conversing' of organizational discourse in interaction as well as texts producedthrough talk (Taylor and Van Every, 2000). Big 'D' discourse, or Discourse,refers to culturally 'standardized ways of referring to/constituting a certaintype of phenomenon' (p. 1134). As Foucault (1980) demonstrated, Discoursesare historically formed by myriad local discourses, contingencies, and culturalassumptions that, in turn, shape social reality. Research on Discourse then focusesnot only on the process of Discourse formation, but also how it offers linguisticresources for social interaction as it produces its constituting effects.

ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION

Traversing both humanistic and social scientillc domains, the meaning potentialsof the term 'communication' are no less complex and multidimensional thanthose of 'discourse'. The most pervasive understanding of communication amongpeople outside of the communication discipline is that it is a transmission ofthoughts or ideas from one person's mind to another through a channel. much asreflected in Shannon and Weaver's (1949) classic Sender ~ Message ~ Receivermodel. In the discipline of communication, this perspective is known as thetransmission model of communication, or what Deetz (1995) calls 'an infor­mational view'. A transmissional view of communication evokes the image ofa conduit that carries messages, a lens that filters information, or a link thatconnects people or social units (Axley, 1984; Putnam et aI., 1996). This approachto communication rests on the assumption that language is the representationof meaning and intention already formed psychologically (Deetz, 1995). Assuch, it is particularly well suited to the study of communication frequencies,channels, and networks.

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However, particularly since the 1980s, a more meaning-centered viewof communication has dominated organizational communication research(Deetz, 1995, 1996; Mumby, 2007; Putnam, 1983). The impetus behind thistrend appears to have been the linguistic turn in the social sciences and philo­sophy (Wittgenstein, 1953) and the emergence of such schools of thoughtas social constructionism (Berger and Luckman, 1966), post-structuralism(Foucault, 1983), and post-modernism (Derrida, 1982).

The underlying assumption of a constitutive view shifts communicationfrom an expression or representation of internal thoughts to one in whichmeaning is negotiated and productive of thought and action. As Deetz (1995;572-3) wrote,

In the constitutive conception. messages are an active part of the production ofmeaning, perceptions, and feelings ... all expression is derived from a more funda­mental set of discursive practices in which the things that are to be expressed bymessages are constitutively produced through messages. (emphasis in the original)

Under the constitutive view, internal cognitive processes are no longer con-ceptualized as the origin of meaning. Instead, meaning is actively produced,reproduced, negotiated, and maintained in social interaction.

In organization studies, a constitutive view of communication allows for

greater interpretive flexibility of the organization-communication relationshipand, therefore, opens up lines of research that are impossible under the trans­missional model. For instance, scholars examine managerial interactions asdramaturgical performances (Pacanowsky and O'Donnell-Trujillo, 1982) thatconstitute organizational life; investigate the construction of organizationalreality through narrative and storytelling (e.g. Boje, 1991); and uncover com­munication as the suppression and distortion of voice and perpetuation oforganizational domination (Mumby, 2005).

With the rapid pace of discourse and communication research both in

and outside the communication discipline (Schmisseur et al., in press), diverseviews as to the relationship between the two terms become unavoidable. For

example, taking a transmissional view of communication, many discourseanalysts object to the notion of equating discourse with communication. AsEdwards (1997: 16-7) argues,

The notion that discourse is a form of social action should not be equated withlanguage as 'communication' ... Certainly the notion of communication improveson the individualistic sense of 'representation'. in that it introduces a necessarysocial dynamic to relations between thought and language. But it also invoke&an image that is itself stubbornly individualistic. It stems from starting not withdiscourse as a phenomenon, but from psychology.where two (imagined) individuals.possessing thoughts, intentions, and so on, have the problem of having to get thesethoughts and intentions across the air waves via a communication channel.

In contrast, as Fairhurst (2007) noted, organizational communicationtheorists such as Taylor and Cooren (1997) and Taylor and Van Every (2000)actually prefer the term 'communication' over 'discourse' because the latter term

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obscures the relationship between conversation and text, a relationship thatthey believe explains the way the organization emerges in communication.

With these dynamics in mind, we sought to examine the most current useof the terms 'discourse' and 'communication' in those journals that publish thework of organizational communication and discourse scholars. Becauseorganizational communication is a multi-faceted discipline covering topicsbeyond discourse research, such as network analysis, information processing,and message flow (Fairhurst and Putnam, 2004), we restricted our analyses todiscourse-oriented journals both in and outside of the field of communication.2We believe that a fuller understanding of the two terms 'discourse' and 'com­munication' and their relationship(s) will enhance the dialogue among scholarsand clear the ground for cross-fertilization. Thus, our research questions are,first, how do organizational discourse studies conceptualize the terms 'discourse'and 'communication', respectively? Second, what are the relationships betweenthe two terms postulated in these studies?

Methods

DATA COLLECTION

To examine how organizational researchers use the terms 'discourse' and 'com­munication' and cast their relationships, we focused solely on data-based articlesto discern analysts' treatment of discourse and communication as data. Thus,we excluded theoretical or methodological pieces, meta-analyses, introductionsfor special issues, commentaries, and reviews of articles and books. Because weinitiated our search within organizational discourse studies, we further limitedour review to the ones that were most relevant to communication, those per­taining to any aspect of organizing practices (Mumby, 2007). We thus excludedanalyses of marketing discourse, public debate, and social interactions outsideorganizational contexts. To reflect the multi-disciplinary nature of organizationaldiscourse studies, we selected 13 major journals in communication, organizationalstudies, and interdisciplinary journals that have an established history of pub­lishing organizational discourse studies. The scholarly journals we included inour search were: Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, CommunicationMonographs, Communication Theory, Critical Studies in Media Communication,Discourse and Society, Discourse Studies, Human Relations, Journal of AppliedCommunication Research, Language and Communication, Language and SocialPsychology, Management Communication Quarterly, Organization Studies andWomen's Studies in Communication.3 To verify the soundness of our selection,we consulted with a disciplinary expert in organizational discourse and com­munication and made modifications based on her comments. Based on the criteria

discussed above, we retained from these selected journals a total of 112 articlespublished between 1981 and 2006.

DATA ANALYSIS

Our analysis proceeded through three steps. First. the first and second authoreach read half of the articles and took notes guided by a series of questions,

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including how discourse, communication, and their relationship were definedor implied, and how and what kind of discourse data were analyzed. Second, thefirst author developed categories for each of the two terms and their relationshipthrough re-reading the articles and comparing notes taken in the first step. Forthe terms 'discourse' and 'communication', categorization was initially guided bythe extant categories in the literature, although we remained open to the emerg­ence of new categories as the analysis would suggest. However, for the discourseand communication relationship, there was little in the extant organizationaldiscourse literature to readily suggest a priori categories.

Third, to ensure confidence in the categorization, we conducted an intercoderreliability test, although it is infrequently used in interpretive studies. The firstand second author did a pilot coding of a subset of five articles independently.Differences in the pilot coding were resolved through discussion among all threeauthors until an agreement was reached. Then the first and second author inde­pendently coded a random sample of 17 articles (approximately 15% of the totalN= 112) to assessintercoderreliability. Using Cohen's (1960) kappa (K), we foundthat the reliabilities (discourse, K= .82; communication, K= .61; discourse andcommunication relationship, K = .78) were acceptable (Banerjee et aI., 1999).We acknowledge that the reliability associated with the term 'communication'was relatively low, although within acceptable range. Unlike 'discourse', the term'communication' was rarely explicitly defined nor was it extensively invoked inmost of the articles and, therefore, was susceptible to a higher level of interpretivevariability among coders. The coding process thus helped shed light on this inter­pretive variability. Having explained our methods for data collection and analysis,the following section details our findings.

Multiple meanings of discourseOur analysis shows that the differentiation between little 'd' and big 'D' dis­courses continues to be a viable marker characterizing two distinct approachesto organizational discourse. Additionally. we see a significant growth in organ­izational research that deals with the interplay between little 'd' and big 'D'discourses.

LITTLE tD' DISCOURSE

Little 'd' discourse refers to talk and text in situated organizational contexts.Studies that engage discourse often examine the processes in which organiza­tional actors construct emotion, attitude, identity and various aspects oforganizational reality, accomplish work tasks and orderliness, and managecontradictions and work relationships through moment by moment talk-in­interaction and creation of local texts. These studies register a strong socialconstructionist perspective (Berger and Luckman, 1966; Gergen, 1999) and payclose attention to the formative role of everyday language use. It is believed that'everyday language use does not simply describe lived realities but is inextricablyinvolved in the constitution of our social practices' (Howard et aI., 2000: 296).

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Some studies follow or adopt research strategies of conversation analysis(Drew and Heritage, 1992) and ethnomethodology (GarfmkeI. 1967). For in­stance, instead of treating and-prefacing as a grammatical feature as linguiststraditionally do, Nevile (2006) investigated its role as a linguistic resource toconstruct orderliness of work. By examining video recordings of airline pilots atwork, he concluded that and-prefacing is 'a local means for making explicit andaccountable pilots' understanding of the connectedness and order of actions ina setting in which such connection and order is critical' (p. 280).

From the tradition of sociolinguistic research, a few studies pay attentionto linguistic practices, such as the use of pronouns, in order to understand themeaning and interpretation of these linguistic features and the constitutiveeffects of their use. For example, Llewellyn and Harrison (2006) investigatedhow workers actively reproduced their traditional anti-management attitude.Their analysis demonstrated the ways in which workers, while consumingcorporate communication, deployed their 'folk linguistic competency' - workers'ability, for instance, to 'distinguish between inclusive and exclusive uses of the firstperson plural, passive transformation, nominalization', and 'to critique the use ofabstractions as the subjects of verbs, identify possible instances of the disguisedsecond person and so forth' (p. 588) - to deconstruct managerial meaning andreconstruct subversive meaning.

Besides a social constructionist emphasis, several discourse studies con­tinue the 'talk-as-action' line of inquiry. Influenced by the pragmatic tradition,such as the speech acts theory (Austin, 1962), research concentrates on howeveryday language use accomplishes work and relationships. For example,Holmes (2000) studied how humor in a New Zealand workplace was used toconstruct and negotiate work relationships. Based on her analysis of recordedworkplace conversations, she found that humor as a context-bound linguisticresource performs multiple functions in 'doing' power. It was effectively usedby subordinates to subtly challenge power structures and by superiors todownplay power distance, soften negative face threats such as directives, orenhance solidarity. Fairhurst's (1993) research on leader-member exchange(LMX) offers another example of the performative and constructive natureof discourse in accomplishing the work relationship. Unlike the previouslydominant social psychological approach of LMX, her detailed analyses of re­corded work conversation revealed how combinations of various discursive

patterns accomplished different levels of LMX.

BIG to' DISCOURSE

By contrast, big 'D' Discourse refers to culturally standardized interpretiveframes historically rooted in systems of power/knowledge. Such systems areembodied in fields of knowledge and everyday practices (Alvesson and Karreman,2000), such as in client Discourse (Anderson-Gough et aI., 2000) and workplacehealth promotion (WHP) Discourse (Zoller, 2003a, 2003b). Dispersed in bothlinguistic and extra-linguistic activities, these Discourses constitute social actorsas both objects to be examined and subjects to be disciplined.

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Hence, organizational Discourse studies are interested in showing howDiscourse constitutes workers' subjectivities, establishes and naturalizes man­agerial control, and disciplines the productive body. These researchers often claimFoucault's work as their major intellectual source. For instance, based on a two­year ethnographic study of WHP initiatives in an automobile manufacturingplant, Zoller (2003b) examined the functioning of WHP as part of a managerialDiscourse. Her study revealed first how the WHP Discourse objectifies the bodyfrom a managerial position and prescribes its appropriate use through self­discipline while simultaneously excluding discussion of work-related healthissues. Zoller's (2003b) research also described how WHP Discourse disperseditself in the talk about health by workers, thus demonstrating how it offeredpowerful linguistic resources for workers to reflect on to examine their own bodyand subject themselves to managerial values.

Moreover, organizational Discourse studies often examine the formation ofDiscourse as the assembly and combination of several societal Discourses withinunique historical contexts to produce certain truth effects. For instance, a studyby Medved and Kirby (2005) examined the emergence of a corporate Discoursethat worked to define the identity of stay-at-home mothers. Their analysis illu­strated that a corporate mothering Discourse was formed' at the confluence ofthree distinct yet interrelated streams of Discourse: ideologies of mothering inrelation to the public or private spheres, the contemporary privileging of theorganization, and feminist debates on motherhood' (p. 461). The corporatemothering Discourse was found to further marginalize women's role ascaregivers.

THE INTERPLAYBETWEEN LITTlE '0' AND BIG '0' DISCOURSE

In addition to studies that primarily focus on either little 'd' or big 'D' discourse,a growing trend in the past few years is that scholars have begun to address howlittle 'd' and big 'D' discourses interplay with one another to co-produce variousaspects of organizational reality in more complicated ways. The impetusunderlying this line of research is the recognition of inadequacies from workingwith either little 'd' or big 'D' discourse. To wit, the former is criticized for over­estimating the power of social actors in local discourse and overlooking theconstituting power of larger Discourses, while the latter draws criticism forbeing Discourse-deterministic and thus minimizing agency (Alvesson andKarreman, 2000; Newton, 1998). To resolve this dualism, scholars have begun tosimultaneously attend to how Discourses take effect through talk-in-interactionand how discourses enable a space of action for self-positioning, subversion,change, and resistance against such Discourses.

The research reviewed here suggests several theoretical accounts that affordsuch interplay between discourse and Discourse. First, Holmer-N adesan (1996)suggested that the possibility of interplay lies in the 'surplus of meaning' of anysignifier, material practice, or identity that any discourse strives to, but alwaysfails to, exhaust. As she (1996: 52) wrote,

The subject's identity is not pre-given as the structural intersection of socialstructures. Rather, with each articulation (in speech and practice) the subject

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invokes her/his identity by drawing upon discursive forms but always/alreadypartially. The inability to fully determine the identities of self and practice has theeffectof engendering space for contingency and for choice.

Her analysis demonstrated how dominant administrative Discourse interpolatedinto certain subject positions women service workers, who, at the same time, wereable to take advantage of the surplus of meaning in their interpolated identitiesand resist through counter- or dis-identification strategies.

Second, the discourse-Discourse interplay could originate from the factthat any site of interaction presents itself with unique power relationships andnumerous individual and social-historical contingencies, which enable actorsto negotiate, rather than accept, their subject positions. In Doolin's (2002) casestudy, an 'enterprise' Discourse sought to colonize a New Zealand hospital througha vocabulary and set of practices oriented toward market commodifications ofhealth. Instead of being overpowered by the enterprise Discourse, however,clinicians were able to take advantage of differential power relationships andprofessional identities formed in the history of the hospital to negotiate theirvaried identities.

A third source of interplay lies in the tensions and inconsistencies amongseveral dominant Discourses that trigger intensive sensemaking activities in theform of discourse among organizational members. To make sense of tensionsand contradictions, members create their own local and personal narratives andstrategically appropriate larger organizational Discourses for their own advan­tage. In a 'thick description' of the identity work by a senior manager, Sveningssonand Alvesson (2003) illustrated that multiple organizational Discourses co­existed, such as 'globalization', 'culture-creativity', and 'technocratic manage­ment control', and that 'a variety of managerial identities are possible, betweenwhich there are tensions and contradictions .. .' (p. 1183). Narrative self-identityis a specific sensemaking activity identified in their study to deal with thesetensions and contradictions. According to Sveningsson and Alvesson (2003),it is 'a kind of "life story" as a central dimension in identity and something thatpotentially integrates the diversity of role expectations common in modern life'(p. 1185). Narrative self-identity functions as a stabilizer for organizationalmembers to cope with a fragmented Discursive environment.

Critical discourse analysis (CDA)(Fairclough, 1993; Fairclough and Wodak,1997) represents a fourth approach to the interplay of little 'd' and big 'D' dis­course but with a manifest critical angle. As Fairclough (1993) noted, CDAaims:

to investigate how such [discursive] practices, events and texts arise out of and areideologicallyshaped by relations of power and struggles over power; and to explorehow the opacity of these relationships between discourse and society is itself afactor securing power and hegemony ... (p. 135)

For CDA,Discourse refers to the 'orders of discourse' - the 'totality of discursivepractices of an institution, and relationships between them' (p. 135) and 'waysof signifying areas of experience from a particular perspective (e.g. patri­archal versus feminist discourses of sexuality)' (p. 135). Our review shows that

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researchers apply CDAto investigate a variety of topics. For instance, Leitch andDavenport (2005) employed CDA to examine the transformation of the sciencefoundation of New Zealand. As both a theory and method, CDA allows theauthors to unpack the intertwined relationship between local discourse prac­tices, organizational change. and national policy shifts.

Finally, discursive psychology (DP) (Edwards and Potter, 1992, 2001; Potter.2003; Potter and Wetherell, 1987; Wetherell. 1998) offers a fifth analyticalapproach to the interplay between discourse and Discourse. Unsatisfied withthe analytical range of conversational and ethnomethodological analysis and theabstraction of Foucauldian Discourse analysis, DP proposes 'a more syntheticapproach' (Wetherell, 1998: 388), which attends to ways in which institutionalmembers manage their subject positions and construct meaning by invokingand indexing various interpretative repertoires. Interpretative repertoires are'culturally familiar and habitual [lines] of argument comprised of recognizablethemes, commonplaces and tropes (doxa)' (Wetherell, 1998: 400). As DP's answerto the critique over the abstract and reification-prone Discourse of Foucault, theirapproach is to ground Discourse (interpretative repertoire) in discursive practices.An example of organizational DP analysis can be found in Ball and Wilson (2000).The study challenged the a priori structural view often taken toward computer­based performance monitoring technologies as electronic panopticons. They didthis by explicating how local organizational power relationships impacted subjectpositioning in relation to the surveillance technology and how organizationalmembers invoked various interpretative repertoires in the process. To understandthe ways in which institutional Discourse operates, they concluded that scholarshave to examine situated organizational practices and subjectification.

Thus far we have presented the various meanings of the term 'discourse'.The following section will turn to the term 'communication' as employed inorganizational discourse studies.

Multiple meanings of communicationIt is worth noting that only approximately 56 percent of the studies we reviewedactually used the term 'communication'. We have identified the following mean­ings of communication as defined or implied in these studies: 1) communicationas transmission of information and intention; 2) communication as meaningconstruction and management; 3) communication as interaction.

COMMUNICATION AS TRANSMISSION OF INFORMATION AND INTENTION

Communication as transmission of information and intention is often referredto in its plural form (communications) that emphasizes channels or means ofmessage flow. For instance, in a study of the discourse of clinical directors whowere both managers and medical professionals, Llewellyn (2001: 618) wrote,'two-way communication between the clinical and management domains hadimproved ... In professional bureaucracies, communications between man­

agers and professionals are taking place, largely through newly developed"two-way" conduits.'

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In addition to channels, the transmissional view of communication alsoattends to the amount and direction of message flow. For example, Couplandet al. (2005) studied discourse around teamworking and change in 'us' and'them' attitude among employees. They stated. 'Increased communication wasconsidered vital to develop employee commitment to teamworking. Managerswere encouraged to "pass on information about teamworking and relay re­sponses back to senior management to encourage a free exchange of views"(manufacturing manager) .. .' (p.1064). The term 'communication' invoked theimage of a certain amount of information or individually formed views flowingin a certain direction within a certain channel.

This transmissional approach tends to characterize organizational com­munication problems as breakdowns caused by transmitting too little. toomuch, or incorrect information, choosing inappropriate channels, or using achosen channel ineffectively (Deetz, 1995; Putnam et aI., 1996). An examplecan be found in a narrative analysis of 911 emergency calls by Imbens-Baileyand McCabe (2000). From a transmissional lens, their analysis concluded thatdescriptive information about an emergent event is more important than de­mands and requests or why-and-how related information, and that failure totransmit the former by a caller to a dispatcher tends to lead to communicationbreakdown.

COMMUNICATION AS MEANING CONSTRUCTION AND MANAGEMENT

The meaning-centered perspective sees communication as the 'creation andmaintenance of symbolic systems' (Mumby, 1988). Communication is considereda productive process in which social realities are negotiated and brought intoexistence through interaction and interpretation. For instance, in studying howtechnical experts and technical writers collaborate to document work know­ledge, Irons (1998) demonstrated that 'technical communication is an inter­pretive process involving the writer as well as subject matter experts who produceagreements about what information is relevant to representing a specific task'(p. 48). Documenting work knowledge is not a transfer of information from theexperts to the writer. Rather, communication through sharing and negotiationof meaning constructs work knowledge.

Communication as meaning construction and reproduction can also takeplace at the organizational level beyond dyadic or small group levels. An examplewas offered by Ganesh (2003), who examined how certain organizationalDiscourses on technology function to reproduce the preferred ideology andidentity of an organization. In this case study. communication was understoodas 'auto-communication' (Christensen, 1995) in the sense that communicationby an organization to an external audience becomes an active constructionof. and reproduction of meaning about. the organization's own identity andlegitimacy.

A very significant aspect of the meaning-centered or constitutive perspectiveof communication lies in the development of a strong critical orientation - theexamination of communication as central to the reproduction of hegemonicideology and power relations. Following Habermas (1984, 1987), Deetz (1992)

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argued that systematic distortion of communication takes place in the 'latentstrategic reproduction of meaning rather than participatory production of it'(p. 173) and that' certain dominant forms of reasoning and articulations standin the stead of other valuational schemes ... Such expressions can and shouldbe examined for possible suppressions of alternative voices .. .' (pp. 176-7).Thackaberry's (2004) analysis of 'discursive closure' and 'discursive opening'in an organizational self-study offers an example of this kind. In addition toHabermas's (1984, 1987) theory of communication, researchers (e.g. Clair,1993; Kinsella, 1999) also draw on Foucault's (1980) power/knowledge andfeminist theories (e.g. Acker, 1990) to investigate managerial control and dom­ination through communication.

COMMUNICATION AS INTERACTION

A third perspective we found is to equate communication to human interaction,referring to sequenced interrelated acts, the context they create, and themeanings formed at both relational and content levels and in both linguisticand extra-linguistic forms. For instance, Brown and Coupland (2005) examinedsilence as a unique element of meaning generation in sequenced interaction.Drawing on Merleau-Ponty (1962) and Waldenfels (1995), Jacobs and Coghlan(2005) argued that listening is a central element of communication and 'apreliminary stage of speech'. As an integral part of the interaction process, theywrote, listening 'enables (i) the constitution of a relational basis, and (ii) the inter­subjective generation of new meaning between speaker and listener' (p. 123,italicized in the original). In other cases, communication is referred to as theinteractional context. As in 'cockpit communication' (Nevile, 2006). the contextof interaction involves some routine interactional events or episodes with fairlydefined roles and sequences of action.

Thus far we have examined the multiple meanings of the terms 'discourse'and 'communication' respectively as they are used in organizational discoursestudies. Now we turn to how researchers cast the relationship between the twoterms either explicitly or implicitly.

The relationship between discourse and communicationOur review surfaces four perspectives on the relationship between organiza­tional discourse and communication. They are 1) D/discourse as the resourcesfor communication; 2) Discourse as operating through communication;3) discourse as one of the many elements of communication: and 4) discourseand communication as synonymous. In the remainder of this section, we detailthese categories more precisely.

D/DISCOURSE AS RESOURCES FOR COMMUNICATION

This perspective considers discourse (referring to both little 'd' and big 'D'discourse) as the 'building blocks' or resources that enable and constitutecommunication as a social process of meaning construction and maintenance.Thus. discourse (generally defined) is considered to embody, construct and

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maintain the meaning of communicators. For instance, Hardy et a!. (2000)argued that discourse is a strategic resource that can bring an object into beingso as to help initiate institutional change because symbols. metaphors, and nar­ratives, when used strategically, can 'resonate with other actors' and be 'attachedto relations and material referents .. .' (p. 1236). Their case analysis about thetransformation of an NGO from an international organization to a local oneeffectively demonstrated the instrumental and formative role of discourse forcommunication - the management and creation of meaning.

In studies of institutional talk, discourse is often conceptualized as a lin­guistic resource for organizational actors to manage co-worker and customerrelationships and accomplish tasks. Communication is explicitly or implicitlyreferred to as the interactional event or context in which relationships are main­tained and tasks executed. For example, Ylanne-McEwen (2004) explored theprocess in which different server-client relational alignments were achievedthrough spoken discourse. Communication was an episode of social encounterbetween travel agents and their clients in which various discursive positioningsby the travel agents and customers allowed them to realize different and oftenambiguous relational goals and meet their interpersonal and conversationalneeds. As another example, Howard et al. (2000) presented a case in which policeofficers strategically deployed different and, sometimes, conflictual discoursesof emotional disclosure for the purpose of maintaining culturally and profes­sionally appropriate self-identities based on whether the communicationencounter was with one of their colleagues or an academic researcher.

BIG '0' DISCOURSE AS OPERATING THROUGH COMMUNICATION

A second perspective on the discourse-communication relationship looksat big 'D' Discourse as operating and taking effect through communication.Communication is considered to be a microsocial encounter among social actorsor textual encounters. For instance, Kinsella (1999) examined the Discursiveproduction of scientific knowledge and power among physicists in a nationalresearch lab. According to Kinsella, the production is 'accomplished throughmultiple, interacting [Djiscourses including the [Djiscourses of a scientific dis­cipline and an emerging technical practice, the many internal [Djiscourses ofa complex organization, and the [Djiscourse of a larger institutional system ofwhich that organization is a part' (p. 172). His case illustrated how social con­sensus or scientific closure reached in communication among physicists wasactually achieved as a result of the specific configuration of these organizational.professional. and institutional Discourses and power relationships, and there­fore, a moment of discursive formation. A study by Garrety et al. (2003) con­sidered Discourse as managerial knowledge and practices that 'define certainways of being and acting as more desirable than others' (p. 218). Their analysison the working of the Discourse of personality typing in an organizationalchange program revealed that communication as symbolic interaction amongorganizational members facilitated the process in which the Discourse ofpersonality typing normalized and controlled organizational members assubjects.

312 Discourse & Communication 2(3)

Another take of the perspective 'Discourse operating through communi­cation' is that a transmissionaJ view of communication can be instrumental tothe mediation between disciplinary Discourses. In a study cited earlier, Llewellyn(2001) argued that professional bureaucracies, such as hospitals, are seeingincreased mediation between clinical and managerial Discourses through anew cadre of leadership who are both professionals and managers, like clinicaldirectors. Previous direct communication between managers and professionalsare now taking place through these clinical directors who embody a new regimeof knowledge and practice that eases communication - the flow of informationbetween disciplinary Discourses.

LITTLE '0' DISCOURSE AS ONE OF MANY ELEMENTS OF COMMUNICATION

In a third view of organizational discourse-communication relationship,discourse is one element of communication characterized by both linguistic andextra-linguistic forms, dialogical partners, social roles and relationships, physicalobjects, and nonverbal features of listening and speaking. Little 'd' discourseas language use in the interactional milieu is but one of these elements. Thisperspective suggests that the effective interpretation of discourse must considerextra-linguistic communicative elements. For instance, Jacobs and Coghlan(2005) argued that most existing approaches emphasize speech (discourse)over listening. The latter, they contended, is a central element in the productionof discourse because effective listening sets up the initial conditions for gener­ating intersubjective meaning, constituting relationships, and forming sharedidentities. In spite of the appeal of the consequential roles that extra-linguisticelements play in meaning construction, in general, language use is still the pre­dominant focus of most studies that we reviewed.

DISCOURSE AND COMMUNICATION AS SYNONYMOUS

Finally, some organizational studies treat the two terms 'discourse' and 'com­munication' synonymously and. use them interchangeably. Here, discourse isgenerally defined. In a study of organizational identity during the process oforganizational change, Larson and Pepper (2003: 529) wrote, 'this case studyexamines discursive strategies and related communicative tactics used by workersand managers in one high-tech company .. .' Later in the article, the authorsstated, 'the purpose of our research is to uncover communicative strategies andtactics used to manage identifications' (p. 536). They employed both terms torefer to the process of meaning construction through language. In a study ofemotional work as a result of job loss, Buzzanell and Turner (2003) were inter­ested in how emotional work was accomplished through talk among membersof families. The authors used the terms 'discourse' and 'communication' inter­

changeably to refer to such talk. By contrast, instead of referring to talk or lan­guage use, Lemke (1999) employed the terms 'discourse' and 'communication'synonymously to encompass both the medium (which was an organization'swebsite in his case) and its language and visual content as part of larger semioticsystems.

Jian et al.:Drganizational discourse and communication 313

Discussion

As Van Dijk (2007) proposed in the first issue of Discourse and Communication,

the main purpose of this journal is to bridge the two cross-disciplines of com­munication and discourse studies by introducing the insights of each field to theother so as to inspire innovative theory and research. Given this goal, we sought toclear the ground for such interdisciplinary development by surfacing the multiplemeanings of discourse, communication, and the discourse-communicationrelationship as appropriated in organizational discourse studies. Our findings notonly demonstrate the diverse conceptualizations of these basic concepts, but alsospot opportunities for future development. In this final section, we will discusswhat these findings suggest about our current practice and future research.

First, a noticeable contrast exists in the use (or non-use) of the term 'com­munication' in journals from the communication discipline versus otherdisciplines. For instance, among the 38 articles published in Communicationjournals, 34 (89.47%) articles employed the term 'communication', whereasamong articles (N = 74) published in non-Communication journals, only 29articles (39.19%) used the term' communication'. In articles from Communicationjournals, the use of communication tended to refer to a constitutive use of lan­guage. This usage pattern represents greater adoption of a constitutive view ofcommunication as the more recent development in the discipline beyond thetransmissional view. By contrast, many articles from non-Communicationjournals use the term 'communication' to refer to an individually orientedtransmission or to the process of social interaction in general. This contrastalong disciplinary lines may suggest that communication scholars have notbeen particularly successful in communicating ongoing development withinthe field to those outside. However, it may also be the case the conduit meta­phor simply reflects one of communication's more obvious features. One has tothink quite a bit more abstractly to capture its meaning generative and realitydefining potential (Fairhurst, 2005).

Second, there is no doubt that the constitutive view of organizational com­munication and discourse studies share many roots and assumptions aboutlanguage use. As such, do organizational communication (at least, the con­stitutive approach) and discourse head toward convergence into one field? Wecan also frame the question in a different way. That is, if we as organizationalcommunication scholars are to introduce the constitutive view of communicationto organizational discourse scholars, should we simply say that we have beenstudying the same thing all along albeit with two different labels? Or, can weas communication scholars claim differences or extra-value while celebratingour similarities with discourse studies?

The answers to these questions vary and still need to be worked out in thefuture. Some communication scholars do seem to suggest, although implicitly,that a constitutive view of organizational communication converges with organ­izational discourse studies. As our findings have shown, discourse is increasinglyforegrounded and often used interchangeably with communication in recentpublications by organizational communication scholars. Prichard (2006) even

314 Discourse & Communication 2(3)

goes so far as to proclaim the potential replacement of organizational communi­cation with discourse.

However, others challenge this perspective, arguing that organizationalcommunication does bring unique value to discourse studies (Cooren, 2006;Taylor and Van Every, 2000; Zoller, 2006). For instance, Taylor and Van Every(2000) argue that communication constitutes organization through the dy­namic relationship between conversation and text and what goes into the pro­duction of conversation, text, and the coordination and construction of meaninginvolves not only linguistic resources and outputs but also paralinguistic fea­tures. physical objects. and extra-linguistic human actions. The term 'discourse'only muddies the waters because of its divergent meanings.

In a slightly different way than Taylor and colleagues, we also assert thatorganizational communication brings unique value to organizational discoursestudies and that discourse and communication are not equivalencies. Whilethere is an inextricably close relationship between discourse and communication,our view of the mix is that organizational actors operate in communication andthrough discourse. By this we mean that in communication actors co-create theirsubjectivities in the form of personal and professional identities, relationships,communities, and cultures through linguistic performances (Barge and Fairhurst,in press). In communication, there is a dynamic connection among actors,action, meaning, and context, such that actions modify and elaborate existingconnections or create new ones. Conversational moments are thus distinct and

novel given the unique intersection of time, place. people, and topic. As such, newpossibilities for meaning making and action are continually emerging as eachutterance introduces new elements that may be picked up for future development(Barge and Fairhurst, in press).

By contrast, it is through discourse that language and communication meetbecause discourse is 'language that is used for some communicative purpose'(Ellis, 1992: 84). As such, discourse is always realized in text that is organizedinteractively, linguistically, and cognitively. Note that our conceptualization oflanguage here is that it brings with it certain affordances (Gibson, 1979), byvirtue of the formal properties of a linguistic system (for example, the Englishlanguage), but also the range of communicative uses to which it may be put­such as what one or more big 'D' Discourses would prescribe in the form of an'interpretative repertoire' of terms, tropes. metaphors, themes, commonplaces,habitual forms of argument, and so on (Potter and Wetherell, 1987; Wetherell,1998). What, then, of little 'd' discourse? Quite simply, communication is the'doing', while text is the 'done' in little 'd' written or in spoken forms (Taylorand Van Every, 2000). Thus, little 'd' discourse represents the textual form ofcommunication. while big 'D' Discourse represents its meaning potentials. Isour postulated difference between discourse and communication a meaning­ful difference? We would argue 'yes', without question, for two reasons. First,communication speaks to key process issues - such as co-creation, connection,uniqueness, and emergence - associated with the experience of interacting withothers much more so than the texts of discourse (Barge and Fairhurst, in press).Second, organizational participants much more readily identify themselves as

Jian et al.: Organizational discourse and communication 315

communicators than discourse analysts. Our best chance of improving com­munication in an organization is to enter the grammar of its members and avoidacademic terms that would only confuse (Cronen,2001).

However, having stated our preferences, our goal is not to impose them. Wedo wish to encourage scholars toward greater clarity regarding the relationshipthey envision and about which they write. By recognizing differences, com­mon ground, and complementarities between organizational discourse andcommunication, we believe that future research will be able to create more innov­ative hybrid theories that combine the advancements from both fields. Heracleousand Marshak (2004) offered an illustrative example of such hybrid theorizing.Drawing on speech act theory, rhetoric, ethnography of communication. andsocial construction of knowledge, they conceptualize organizational discourseas situated symbolic interaction so that discourse analysts can fully take advan­tage of the strengths that communication studies offers in its simultaneousattention to text and context such as in rhetorical analysis. Such hybrid theoriz­ing, we argue, holds the promise of producing research to effectively addressthe question raised by Alvesson and Kiirreman (2000: 1146):

How does one in empirical work proceedfrom encounters with texts (documents, interviewtalk. observed talk) to' make summaries and interpretations of wider sets of discourseincluding aggregations of a variety of elements, an integrated framework of vocabularies,ideas, cognition and, interrelated with these, practices of various kinds? In short: towhat extent - and if so, when and how - can we move from discourses to Discourse(s)?(emphasis in the original)

In conclusion, as authors of this article, we believe that organizational dis­course studies will continue to enrich organizational communication through itsdiverse traditions and rapid developments. In return, organizational com­munication offers interesting theories and methods that can expand andcomplement organizational discourse studies. A journal like Discourse and

Communication opens up an important venue for disseminating the latestdevelopments from both fields and promoting interdisciplinary research andcross-cutting dialogue. We hope we have contributed to this cause by dispellingsome of the misunderstandings that scholars from one research field may possesstoward the other and by sorting through some, if not all, the confusions regardingthe terms 'discourse', 'communication', and their relationships.

NOTES

1. Alvesson and Kiirreman (2000) actually specify four levels of discourse analysis,which we found overly specific for our study. Thus, we followed their convention ofmore parsimoniously separating discourse from Discourse.

2. Thus, discursively oriented journals would be relevant to communication concerns,but not all communication journals would be relevant to discourse concerns.

3. There are, of course, other journals such as the Journal of Business Communicationand Academy of Management Journal that arguably have come 'on-line' with respect todiscourse study since this study commenced. However, we believe that the inclusionof such journals would not have substantially altered our findings.

316 Discourse & Communication 2(3)

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The communicative constitution of what? dA response to Jian et al. (II

The interest in organizational communication and discourse analysis is fuelledby the claim that communication has a significant stake in constituting socialreality. Since this claim is central for organization communication, and thus alsoto Jian et al.'s (this issue) argument, it seems wise to stop and think a bit aboutthis particular claim: what it means and to what extent it matters. In this essay,we attempt to be somewhat mDre specific about what communication - anddiscourse in particular - may constitute and how that influences the way wemay think about communication and discourse.

On one level. the claim that communication constitutes social reality is verystrong. It is an inescapable fact that we see something as something. While thefirst something mayor may not be linguistic in character, the second somethingalways is. The second something, in the sense of as something, highlights theirreducible dimension of meaning. To make sense, reality is covered in layers ofmeaning. Thus, reality always reveals itself in a figurative manner. The layerof meaning is very powerful in many ways, but we should not be carried away.The layer of meaning is not all there is. Yes, it is always important, and it mayin some instances be the most important thing or even the only thing, but thisis far from always the case.

One reason magic is magic is because everything is done by words. Consider,for example, the beautiful economy and elegance of Harry Potter's world, whereagency is achieved by a wand and a word. Clearly, in magic the wand is a necessarybut not sufficient condition for moving the world. The real power lies in the spell,alas, the word. In our reality, there are a surprising amount of instances when theword carries most of the weight of agency - we will come back to this later - butfirst we want to say something about the cases where the word - and meaning­matters less than the character of the first something, or rather the object or theperformance it refers to.

We have a common friend that had a running joke where he invited peopleto his socially constructed balcony. The punch line was, of course, that his

320 Discourse & Communication 2(3)

Zoller, H.M. (2006) 'Suitcases and Swimsuits: On the Future of OrganizationalCommunication', Management Communication Quarterly 19: 661-66.•

GU0WEI J IANisan AssistantProfessorof Communicationin the Schoolof Communicationat Cleveland State University.His research interests include organizational communi­cation and discourse communication, organizational change, information and com­munication technologiesat work, and intercultural communication. Hisresearch appearsin Communication Research, Communication Monographs, Management CommunicationQuarterly, Communication Studies, Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, and theupcomingHandbookof Business Discourse. ADDRESS: Schoolof Communication,ClevelandState University,2121, EuclidAve., MU247, Cleveland,OH44115-2214, USA.[emaiI:g.jian@csuohio.edu]

AMYM. SCHMI SSE URis an Assistant Professor of Communication at the UniversityofKansas. Her primary research interests include emotion management, leadership, andorganizational change communication with specific emphasis on the emotionality ofplanned change communication. Her recent work is featured in the Journal of BusinessCommunication and in the upcoming Handbook of Business Discourse.

GAil T. ~AIRHURSTis a Professorof Communication at the Universityof Cincinnati. Herresearch interests include organizational communication. leadership and organizationaldiscourse. She has published over 50 articles and book chapters and is the author ofDiscursive Leadership: In Conversation with Leadership Psychology (SAGE,2007) and The Artof Framing: Managing the Language of Leadership (Jossey-Bass,1996, with R. Sarr).

DEBATE

DAN KARREMAN AND MATS ALVESSON

lUND UNIVERSITY,SWEDEN•

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apartment lacked a balcony. (We didn't say that the joke was funny.) Beneaththe silliness of the joke lurks an important truth. Although all balconies ob­viously are socially constructed - after all, they hardly grow on trees - they relyon more things than imaginary meaning: for example, on concrete, steel orother material. They also rely on performances for their actual construction: onwelding and brick-laying and other forms of work. Arguably they matter morefor the constitution of the balcony - in the first something sense - than the layerof meaning that embeds it.

Cars, trains, bridges. houses, machines, meals - we can go on. Our point isnot that they exist independent of meanings and words. They clearly don't. Ourpoint is rather that, apart from the cultural significance or these objects, theirconstitution is more a matter of material and performances than of meaningsand words. This is also true for certain less material-bound entities, such as the

performance of services and rituals. Take for example, the cleaning of a houseor a wedding. Words are important for understanding what cleaning is all aboutbut the actual performance is likely to be performed without a word. And awedding is clearly more dependent on performances of the bride, the groom,the officiant and whoever pays the bills, than on any words.

Actually, let's roll back the tape on the weddin"g.This is not really a clear typeof performance (or something in the first sense) where words are not enough.To a certain extent words clearly are not enough. As we pointed out above, thereis more to a wedding than words. However, words are doing important, if not themost important, work during this ceremony. A wedding is not just a party wherepeople meet and congregate. It is also a mechanism for changing the social statusamong certain people.

This change is almost exclusively done by words. It is accomplished throughelaborate sequences of words that are uttered by the bride, the groom and theofficiant. Without these words a wedding would just be a very expensive party.With them, complex social relations are constituted and legitimized.

The wedding is not the only ritual or performance where words are playingthe perhaps most significant role. In getting married or divorced, getting hiredand fired, in making war and peace, in getting promotion or demotion, wordsare making their magic and get the things done. They may not be the onlyingredient but they are surely making a critical contribution in creating andconstituting reality, not just by being an irreducible dimension but by being theactual tools or agents of change and creation.

Finally, for a certain class of somethings in the first sense, meaning is all wehave. In a way, here something in the first sense collapses with the somethingin the second sense. Take for example weddings again. this time not the type ofweddings that you and we participate in, but rather the pure idea of the institu­tion as it operates in, for example, a particular culture. Here we are not interestedin brides, grooms. and officiants in flesh and blood. Rather, we are interested inwhat they represent from a symbolic point of view, and how the institution ofmarriage and weddings operate in, for example, the political economy, shapinggendered opportunities and division of labor, and distribution of wealth. From this

Ka rrema nand Alvesson: The communicative constitution of what? 323

point of view, the somethings we take an interest in are institutions or Discourses,and. in particular, how different institutions (in the imaginary form) interrelateand interact in society in general.

These kinds of somethings exist as words only - as abstractions or general­ities. As such they shape how we think and interact in reality in a very thoroughand ultimately powerful way. In many ways the inert and taken for grantedcharacter of en cultured institutions tend to fool us into believing that they arefar less fragile and malleable than they actually are. In this sense. the emergenceof gay marriage, for example, will not change the actual ritual and performancemuch, if at all, but it will change cultural patterns of understandings and socialrelations in a profound way.

The discussion above has some implications, as we already have hinted, onthe distinction between discourses, with a small d, and Discourse. with a cap­italized D, as discussed by Jian et al. (this issue). In cases where words are notenough, discourses arguably tend to be of interest from a discourse (with a smallletter d) analysis point of view. The proper place for communication analysis inthese cases is about the structure and content of the conversations that occur

around these objects and performances. Although we would argue that it is astretch to think that these objects and performances primarily are constitutedthrough communicative processes, the analysis of communicative processesembedding them certainly would tell us important things about how they operatein social reality.

Small letter discourse analysis would also generally be helpful for under­standing cases where words are doing the main job. In many ways. the value andimportance of discourse analysis has been established through the analysis ofthe performative aspects of language use (see. for example, Potter and Wetherell,1987): when language clearly is used to accomplish things. In fact, we thinkthat this is probably the area of analysis where small letter discourse analysis hasthe greatest potential, and also few competing analytical tools.

Discourse analysis with a capital D, on the other hand, is eminently suitablefor the analysis of ideational phenomena on an abstract level. As Foucault hasdemonstrated numerous times, this analytical perspective is a powerful wayof understanding the history and the sociology of ideas (although Foucault'sanalysis of power probably is more telling regarding the sociology of ideas). In away, it could be argued that the pure meanings of words also have performativeeffects, that they in fact also do things in the world. We think that this is correctto some extent, but we think the pure meaning side of words has a different typeof agency in comparison to words that accomplish things. In the first case theagency lies in the framing effect of the meaning the word carries. In the secondcase, meaning is secondary, and the agency lies in actually uttering the words,thus connecting events rather than framing them.

The key point of much communication and discourse studies is the ideathat language use does not simply mirror reality out there but rather createsor constitutes it. As said above. this sometimes is insightful, but sometimes itis a less relevant or productive point. 'Constitutes' covers a wide spectrum of

324 Discourse & Communication 2(3)

various analytical options. It may be seen as the vital. powerful element in real­ity construction. "Reality' - behaviors, practices, meanings, talk - out there isambiguous, "weak' and offer only a general and soft input to the discourse user.It may be seen as medium-strong - social reality (as practices) or cultural andindividual mindsets (or deeply anchored meanings) may show considerableresistance against most efforts to constitute reality in specific ways, althoughthere are some variations and options. Or reality may be quite robust - we maywant to constitute knowledge society as much as we want, but most part ofworking life may put effective stoppers to do most work mainly through usingbrains and intellectual analysis.

What constitutes 'constitutes'? Some alternative meanings include:

Discourse is just talk (yawn!) - language use puts no imprints on constitutiveagency.Discourse varnishes - the discourse is a minor, final moment of namingsomething which makes a certain difference.Discourse gestures - something out there is placed in a new context and, asfigure forms ground, meaning is revised.Discourse frames - something is preformed, but in a not entirely accessible(presentable) way, via discourse this something gets its shape.Discourse produces - discourse provides most of the constitutive agency.Discourse creates - discourse provides (almost) all the constitutive agency.

These six meanings roughly follow a scale from "weak' to "strong'. Discoursecan, to use our ironic concept in Alvesson and Karreman (2000), be seen asmore or less muscular. Discourse analysts often seem to emphasize that discoursehas a lot of muscle mass - although different muscular discourses may neutralizeeach other or create uncertain effects. We are not so sure. Discourse may makea difference - however, this muscularity can not be assumed but needs to bedemonstrated. As we see it, an open mind and a lot of footwork are in order tobe sensitive for the meaning of discourse in a social context. A greater interestin language use in social context and a stronger attention to the responsivenessto discourse can be a way forward. The muscularity of discourse offers aninteresting field of empirical inquiry.

REFERENCES

Alvesson, M. and Kiirreman, D. (2000) 'Varieties of Discourse. On the Study ofOrganizations through Discourse Analysis', Human Relations 53: 1125--49.

Potter, J. and Wetherell, M. (1987) Discourse and Social Psychology: Beyond Attitudes andBehaviour. London: SAGE.•

MAT S A LV E S SON is Professor at the School of Economics and Management, LundUniversity, Sweden and Visiting Professor at University of Queensland Business School,Australia. His research interests include knowledge work, organizational culture,

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identity, critical theory and qualitative methodology. ADD RES s: Lund University, Schoolof Economics and Management, Department of Business Administration, PO Box 7080,S 220 07 Lund, Sweden. [emaiI: mats.alvesson@fek.lu.se]

DAN KAR REMAN is Associate Professor at the School of Economics and Management,Lund University, Sweden. His research interests include knowledge work, organizationalcontrol, identity, leadership, critical theory and research methods. ADDRESS: LundUniversity, School of Economics and Management, Department of Business Administration,PO Box 7080, S 220 07 Lund, Sweden. [emaiI: dan.karreman@fek.Iu.se]

DEBATE

Discourse and/or communication:living with ambiguity

FRANCESCA BARGIElA-CHIAPPINI

NOTTINGHAM TRENT UNIVERSITY, UK•

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The outlook of this response to Jian et al. (this issue) is both personal and'European' in flavour, in that it reflects the author's own trajectory throughdiscourse(s) and her meeting with (business) communication research along theway. It also hints at her 'crossings' into organization studies and managementstudies and her increasing incursions into North American areas of scholar­ships that discuss human matters intriguingly classified as 'communication'or'discourse'.

Discourse or Communication? As a terminological tension, this must be oneof the most enduring and virtually insoluble because, in some ways, it isinherently false. It is as a linguist often giving in to the temptation of uninvitedforays into other disciplines that I am delighted to accept Jian et aI.'s invitation,conscious that I am in the company of scholars who represent some of thedisciplines that I have visited, and excited by the prospect of adding my voice toa polyphonic response.

Not long ago, I had an intellectually stimulating email conversation with myco-authors (Bargiela-Chiappini et aI., 2007) on whether we should entitle ourbook 'Business Discourse' or 'Business Communication'; the book series editorsand the commissioning editor at Palgrave also became implicated in the argu­ment for or against discourse/communication. In the end, discourse won theday on counts of both differentiation and association. The strong disciplinaryidentity evoked by 'communication' in North America and the equally powerfullyapplied mission of 'business communication' in that part of the world meantthat using 'communication' might have suggested a certain type of content andapproach. On the other hand, by exploiting the distinctly European preferencefor the multidimensional and multidisciplinary concept of 'discourse', wecould embrace and discuss a range of approaches and perspectives.

Jian et ai. (this issue) re-propose the conceptual debate from within organ­izational communication where discourse analytic approaches have beenextensively used. As their article vividly illustrates, preferences for one or the

328 Discourse & Communication 2(3) Bargiela-Chiappini: Discourse and/or communication

other concept are manifested in the approaches individual scholars favour,and for which many of them helpfully offer a rationale. It seems to me thatthere are several factors that affect a researcher's positioning with respect tothe communication/discourse debate, for example disciplinary background,disciplinary evolution, academic affiliation, geographic location and, perhapsmore importantly, guiding research questions.

As a linguist trained in Britain in sociolinguistics and pragmatics andfacing, many years ago, the challenge of a doctoral research project focusingon the 'language of management', I turned to management studies and organ­ization studies for breadth of insight, only to find that before 1991 the twofields did not have much to offer in terms of language-based studies. It wasleft to individual initiative to forge cross-disciplinary alliances and when theymaterialized, the result was real excitement at the possibility of linguistics andmanagement talking to each other (Watson and Bargiela-Chiappini, 1998).

Looking back at the 1990s, and bearing in mind my continuing associationwith arts and humanities as a member of a communication and media researchgroup, significantly for my future research, it was 'discourse' rather than com­munication, that enabled me to establish a point of contact with organizationand management studies. Guest-editing a special issue on organizationaldiscourse for the International Journal of the Sociology of Language was an attemptto engage with colleagues in those fields and with the individual readings of'discourse' that each contributor chose to identify with. It was instructive to seehow the range of discursive approaches to organizing stretched from 'sociologicalrealism' (Watson, 2004) to social constructionism (Czarniawska, 2004) in thespace of five papers.

My contribution to the special issue sought to elaborate on the evolvingontology of discourse (Bargiela-Chiappini, 2004) as reflected in some of thecontemporary discursive approaches adopted in linguistics, psychology, organ­ization studies, sociology and social theory. The evolutionary process of discourse,from 'descriptive' to 'generative' was mapped on a continuum (see Figure I),which attempted to capture the diachronic development of the concept as wellas its manifestations in various disciplines.

A good example of contemporary 'transformative discourse' within Americanacademia was represented by the work of Stanley Deetz, who, somewhat ironicallyfor my argument, wrote from the perspective of organizational communication

and proposed an agenda of social engagement along the dimensions of respons­ibility and value (Deetz, 2001). It is within the conceptual and pragmatic spaceof 'transformative discourse' that theory and practice meet and the ethics ofengagement are formulated: '[t]he locus of the theory - practice relationshipmust be an ethical interrogation of experience, how one conducts oneself, one's

FIG U R E 1. The engagement continuum (Bargiela-Chiappini,2004: 8)

DISCOURSEas ...

Descriptive Interpretative* *

Constitutive Transformative* *

Generative

daily practices vis-a.-visothers' (Marsden and Townley, 1996, quoted in Bargiela­Chiappini, 2004: 6).

The generative potential of discourse is best expounded and illustrated bythe various 'critical' tradition in linguistics and beyond; at present, agendas forsocial change are emerging strongly also within critical management studiesand critical organization studies, where conceptualizations of 'discourse' fromsocial theory have been favoured.

These reflections seem quite remote and of limited use to the multidisciplin­ary field of 'business discourse', within which I have been operating for the last15 years and where I have been confronted by issues emerging from fieldworkin (business) organizations in Italy and Britain. It is in the direct contact withpeople, their work and their problems that the organizational linguist, if sucha figure is conceivable, begins to ask questions such as: how everyday languagebrings about power and affect; how corporate materiality echoes verbal (seIO­representations; how 'cultural archetypes' intersect experiential trajectoriesinto Italian and British embodiments of management praxis? In all of these andmany more aspects of organizational research as perceived through the sensesand sensibilities of a linguist, the limitations imposed by any dichotomies, suchas the communication-discourse one, appear false, and if taken on board, maylead to conceptual paralysis. They are also ultimately useless in research practicewhere choices of labels often fizzle out before the profound question: what ishappening here?

I realize that this is an oblique line to pursue in a response to an article thatvaliantly engages with so many and varied constructions of discourse and com­munication. The ambiguity that I mention in the title of my response arises froma protracted involvement with terminological debates; some have been resolvedby consulting various positions in selected disciplinary literatures and delvinginto word etymology (e.g. the difference between 'multi-disciplinary, inter­disciplinary and cross-disciplinary'; and 'inter-cultural and cross-cultural').Others, such as the presently discussed contest between discourse and com­munication, seem resistant to compromise, never mind a convincing resolutionwhich prescinds from the guiding question above (what is happening here?) andall other specific questions ensuing from it.

As well as terminological confusion, mentioned by Jian et al. in their piecein this issue, and engendered by different scholars embracing one or the otherlabel, and perhaps at times using them also interchangeably, what looks like'terminological hopping' can also cause bewilderment. When we first discussed'intercultural business communication' (Bargiela-Chiappini and Nickerson,2003), the choice of communication instead of discourse was conscious anddeliberate. In our position statement on what we saw as an emergent multi­disciplinary field of study with a distinctive European flavour, it was importantto make clear the link between intercultural business communication (lBe) andtwo of its tributary disciplines, that is, intercultural communication (IC) andbusiness communication (BC),both originating in the US.The debt that mc owesto IC and BCrests specifically on their emphasis on communication rather than

330 Discourse & Communication 2(3)

discourse, and acknowledges the contribution that North American scholarshiphas made to the field of communication (studies).

On the other hand, the European predilection for 'discourse' to refer to theanalyses of authentic language interactions, in the mid- and late 1990s inspiredthe labelling of a field with which my own research has come to be associated,Le. business discourse (Bargiela-Chiappini and Nickerson, 1999). Such choiceflagged up the distinctive research and language-based approach of the fieldfrom, for example, the pedagogic and prescriptive character of much businesscommunication or applied linguistics research at the time. Business discoursewas then defined as: 'dominated by talk and writing between individuals whosemain work activities and interests are in the domain of business and who cometogether for the purpose of doing business' (Bargiela-Chiappini and Nickerson,1999: 2).

Nearly a decade later, business discourse has moved dangerously towards'communication' , embracing non-European perspectives, applied linguistics andpedagogy-led research and even a (modest) amount of prescriptivism, which thelatter two brought with them. In its recent, catholic version (Bargiela-Chiappiniet aI., 2007), business discourse has accommodated research projects that couldeasily be classified under business communication, at least as understood inNorth America. This also reflects a movement within business communicationand applied linguistics towards language-based research and, ultimately, to­wards some of the concerns originally espoused by business discourse.

It is interesting to note that the dialogue between communication anddiscourse and between Europe and North America, is one that is set to continuewithin business discourse. Several contributors and some reviewers involvedin the Handbook of Business Discourse (Bargiela-Chiappini, 2009) havebeen puzzled by the use of 'discourse' in the title, especially after inspecting theeclectic table of contents. Some asked whether a definition had been agreedamong contributors, others asked for my own definition; yet others engagedwith me in email exchanges to find a shared, working definition. Perhaps,unsurprisingly, there seems to be a continuum (another one) between the con­tributors who in their chapters seem happy to identify with discourse as aleading concept, through to those who elaborate on their journey from com­munication to discourse, to those who take issue with discourse and settle for'language' instead. Disciplinary and cultural reasons, as well as epistemologicalpreferences, can be adduced as possible explanations; the fact remains that theHandbook seems to consolidate the debate in terms of persisting, co-existing (andirreconciliable?) terms, each reflecting cherished loyalties and concerns.

Commenting on discourse analysis, Deborah Schiffrin wrote:

It is the ultimate inability to separate language from how it is used in the world inwhich we live that provides the most basic reason for the interdisciplinary basisof discourse analysis. To understand the language of discourse, then, we need tounderstand the world in which it resides; and to understand the world in whichlanguage resides, we need to go outside linguistics. (Schiffrin, 1994: 419)

Journeys beyond linguistics can take us far from home, away from langu­age, sometimes away even from discourse - and, some time, they may take us

Sa rgiela-Chia ppin i: Discourse and/or communication 331

towards communication. For anthropologists, communication is limited to theverbal medium. Ruth Finnegan (2002: xv) significantly talks about 'modes ofcommunicating' (added emphasis), stressing the dynamic andprecessual in humaninterconnection. In this understanding, language is but one mode; sound, vision,smell, touch, artefacts, space and time, all make communicating the multifaceteddomain of activities we daily engage in. At this point, sceptics,. and semioticians,would retort that 'everything is communication'; but perhaps not everythingis discourse, and certainly very few entities could be labelled as language, atleast for those of us who have been trained in linguistics.

On the other hand, a linguist researching (language in) organizations isquickly met by the challenge of unpacking yet another term, namely organization,or, as some would have it, organizing. To quote the linguist Roy Harris (2005: viii)who examined the 'language of science': 'It is a misconception to imagine thatit falls within the professional competence of linguists to describe the languageof science "from the outside"; that is, without ever themselves engaging directlywith the question: "What is science?" I do not think that is possible'. Harris goeson to say that the 'semantics of science' can only be discussed by engaging withthe 'rhetoric of science', which he defines as 'the public claims that scientistsmake on behalf of science' (p. ix).

Should we then probe deeper in the 'rhetoric of communication' and the'rhetoric of discourse' (and indeed, the 'rhetoric of organization'), a task initiatedby Jian et al., to try and understand what lies inside them, in the hope of, perhapsone day, plunging the ontological depths that separate them?

REFERENCES

Bargiela-Chiappini. F. (2004) 'Organizational Discourse: Reflections on a New ResearchParadigm', International Journal of the Sociology of Language 166: 1-18.

Bargiela-Chiappini, F. (ed.) (2009) The Handbook of Business Discourse. Edinburgh:Edinburgh University Press.

Bargiela-Chiappini, F. and Nickerson, C. (1999) 'Introduction', in P. Bargiela-Chiappiniand C. Nickerson (eds) Writing Business. Media Genres and Discourses, pp. 1-32. Harlow:Longman.

Bargiela-Chiappini, F.and Nickerson, C. (2003) 'Intercultural Business Communication:A Rich Field of Studies', Journal of Intercultural Studies 24(1): 3-16.

Bargiela-Chiappini, F., Nickerson, C. and Planken, B. (2007) Business Discourse.

Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Czarniawska. B. (2004) 'Metaphors as Enemies of Organizing, or the Advantages of a

Flat Discourse', International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 166: 45-66Deetz, S. (2001) 'Conceptual Foundations', in P.M.Jablin and L.1. Putman (eds) The New

Handbook of Organizational Communication: Advances in Theory, Research and Methods,

pp. 3-46. Thousand Oaks. CA: SAGE.Finnegan, R. (2002) Communicating. The Multiple Modes of Human Interconnection. London:

Routledge.Harris, R. (2005) The Semantics of Science. London: Continuum.Marsden, R. and Townley, B. (1996) 'The Owl of Minerva: Reflections on Theory and

Practice', in S. Clegg, C. Hardy and \Iv. Nord (eds) Handbook of Organization Studies,

pp. 659-75. London: SAGE.

DEBATE

Directions for thought leadership indiscourse and communication:a commentary on Jian et al.

332 Discourse & Communication 2(3)

Schiffrin, D. (1994) Approaches to Discourse. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Watson, T.J. (2004) 'Managers, Managism, and the Tower of Babble: Making Sense

of Managerial Pseudojargon', International Journal of the Sociology of Language166 (March): 67-82.

Watson, T.J.and Bargiela-Chiappini, F.(1998) 'Managerial Sensemaking and OccupationalIdentities in Britain and Italy: The Role of Management Magazines in the Process ofDiscursive Construction' ,Journal of Management Studies 35 (3): 285-301.•

FRANCESCA BARGIELA-CHIAPPINI has published widely on business discourse. Sheis a learner in a range of disciplines and she is keen on cross-boundary research: the rest ofthe time, she is senior research fellow in linguistics with an insatiable interest in cross­cultural issues and qualitative methodologies. ADD RES S: School of Arts and Humanities,Nottingham Trent University, Clifton Lane, Nottingham NG7 1EH, UK.(email: francesca.bargiela@ntu.ac.uk]

JAMES R. BARKER

WAIKATO UNIVERSITY, NEW ZEALAND•I

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State of the art articles such as this serve as an essential stocktaking of anacademic field and, thus become good places for us to pause and consider whatwe are doing and why we are doing it. From a strategy perspective, such articlescreate an effective method for us to consider the value that we, as discourse/communication scholars of organizations, are creating right now and how weought to create that value on into the future. In particular, their article pushesus to consider the directions and opportunities for effective thought leadershipfor our field in both the short and long terms. With that thought in mind, ]ianet al.'s assessment of where we are right now points us toward three very stickyand difficult thought leadership issues that we must effectively engage if we areto create the value we need to create. The first issue is also the most readily appar­ent in their article: 'Is it communication, or is it discourse, or is it Discourse?'

What the market saysI must confess that I tend to use the words discourse and communication inter­changeably, a self-observation that I find rather interesting. Intellectually, I ama product of US-oriented organizational communication training with all itstightly bound connection to 'main stream' US communication theory and witha history deeply rooted in the study of Middle America speech practice. The wordcommunication quite naturally explains what I do. Yet, for several years nowI have worked outside the US and collaborated with scholars who identify withorganizational studies and who use the word discourse to mean what I wouldotherwise call communication. Discourse also quite naturally explains whatI do. So, I now rather easily use the word discourse when, ten years ago, I wouldhave used the word communication.

So, why is this observation all that important? Well, I believe my experiencecalls us to look deeper into the meaning of our apparent struggle withcommunication, discourse, and Discourse. Far from being 'floating signifiers',

334 Discourse & Communication 2(3)

the way that we use these terms reflect forces in the global market of ideas. Rightnow in the global marketplace, thought leadership lies with the term discourseand with the potential that term offers us both for connecting to and creatingcollaborative value with scholars worldwide. Discourse, even with all its big D­

and little d baggage, offers us a very workable platform for engaging with eachother globally, sharing research, cultivating concepts, getting grants, and mostpragmatically, publishing new knowledge. Discourse is exerting a strong pullin the global marketplace, and we need to recognize that fact and go with it.

Now, does that mean that, Prichard (2006, and as quoted here by Jian et aI.)was right, that organizational communication will be replaced by discourse?The answer is a very resounding yes and no. Yes, discourse has much moretraction globally as an intellectual term, but communication is much moreuseful in articulating the practical side of what we do. Communication in theUSis powerfully, historically, tied up in the practical side, the application of com­munication in the real world. But discourse works better in the global marketto attract ideas and motivate diverse scholars toward collaborative conceptualpursuits.

Although not a part of Jian et aI.'s analysis here, I believe that an emergingdirection for discourse and communication is clearly evident in their findings.Here I see both terms evolving toward separate but useful places in the ideamarket, which is, as is any market, efficient - concepts like enterprises willeither find a place or fall away. Discourse is evolving to take its place as the termof choice on the conceptual side while communication is holding its position asthe term of choice for the practical and application side. Holding the structur­ational 'practical and discursive consciousnesses' perspective in mind, com­munication refers to what we do and discourse refers to how we think about

what we do. We may find this terminology division a bit unwieldy at times, butit works, it makes sense.

In fact, we really need to keep the two realms separate if we are to createthe value we need to create in the world. Toward the end of their article, Jianet aI. evoke Cronen (2001) and assert that 'our best chance of improving com­munication in an organization is to enter the grammar of its members andavoid academic terms that would only confuse'. I very much disagree here asthis claim gives the sense that the practical side is somehow better, more valid.Rather. we, as organizational scholars, especially as organizational scholarsseeking to be thought leaders among our global organizational studies peers,have a very real and very necessary responsibility for engaging in both ofthese two realms - the conceptual and the applied - and for being fluent inboth grammars. If we totally immerse ourselves in the grammar, and thus thediscourse, of the applied side, we will lose perspective on the role that discourseplays in shaping that communication and the ability to identify and mitigatethe consequences of communication in action. Likewise, if we remain completelyon the discourse side, we lose the ability to say anything relevant and meaning­ful to the people doing communication. We have to be 'in' both worlds, fluent inboth grammars, to be meaningful and relevant, to exert thought leadership, andto create the value that we should create as organizational scholars - discovering,

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Sa rker: Directions for thought leadership in discourse and communication 335

testing, and articulating discursive knowledge that positively affects both thecommunication practice of organizations in the world and the lives of those'doing' the practising.

The pursuit of relevanceThis brings me to the second 'sticky' issue that I mentioned at the outset of

my response, and this is a point not directly engaged by Jian et aI.. but clearlyimplied by their analysis. First, if we are all wailing and gnashing our teethover 'is it communication, discourse, or Discourse', then how are we ever goingto say anything relevant to anyone outside our own realm?! If we look closely,the marketplace of ideas hands us a fantastic touch point for creating goodvalue, for being exceedingly relevant in today's world, and for connecting muchbetter with scholars outside our fIeld.

What is communication or discourse or organizational studies or organ­izational communication about anyway if it is not about our relationships incollectivities? All of us experience the strong need for empathy and solidaritythat collective relationships give us. We understand how organizations work assystems of relationships, how non-human entities (e.g. money, technology, values,and so forth) shape and affect these relationships, and how the consequences ofall this arise and affect us. We can develop useful and sophisticated ways of facili­tating our organized relationships and mitigating the apparent consequences.And, this, I believe, should be our galvanizing aim, our point of differentiation,our realm of thought leadership. We already know that organizations are com­plex forces of complex relationships and that globalization, itself, is a force ofcomplex systems of complex relationships. And we organizational scholarsare the experts who can engage in both these venues. Further, a focus on howorganization comes about via relationships has much better traction withscholars outside our fIeld than the more cumbersome terms communicationand discourse.

I would argue that we have much value to create for the world if we pursuethis advantage, but doing so requires that we rethink, fundamentally, our waysof knowing. A truly powerful and useful focus on organizational relationshipsrequires us to move beyond our familiar turf of process - outcome thinking,psychological states, and sociological theories and into the difficult realm of thefluid and real-time world in which any relationship exists - the real experience

of interacting with others that Jian et aI. allude to their conclusion. We needwhat is popularly being called 'meso' theories of discourse/communication incollectivities, not just for the sake of fInding some mid-level golden fleece, butmore for the opportunity of crafting theories that are uniquely derived fromdiscursive thinking and that help both scholars and practitioners make bettersense of fluid relationships. Such thinking is out there, but we need a more focusedeffort to embrace it, bring it out, and cultivate thought leadership.

We scholars of organizational discourse and communication are also uni­quely positioned to embrace the difficult territory of ethics in organizational

336 Discourse & Communication 2(3)

practice. Yes the thought of actively engaging in ethics, in what is right for anorganization to do, makes us uncomfortable in that value-neutral sort of way.But, we are well aware that what might be right for one communication situationmight quite wrong for another, and that what is right for a communicationsituation today may very well be wrong in tomorrow's situation. Globalizationalso creates a strong need for us to develop a more workable and sustainableorientation on organizational ethical practice as cultures, belief systems, waysof knowing, and values connect and clash as a part of our everyday lives. Again,we organizational scholars have the ability to create positive value here becausewe can create useful knowledge about organizational ethics and useful ways forpractitioners to create organizations of integrity - especially if we can effectivelybalance being in both the discourse and the communication realms. Thoughtleadership in organizational ethics is a natural direction for us as scholars, andwe should claim it forthwith. As said before, such thinking is out there, we justneed to be more focused on and open to cultivating that potential.

Organizational communication?Why are we having this conversation anyway? Why are we having this conver­sation in this particular journal? A journal published by SAGE UK?The field ofdiscourse/communication in organizations has evolved into a global domain,and that fact sits less easily with us than we might normally assume and servesto bring forward the final thought leadership issue that I see arising from Jianet al.'s article: what is to become of Organizational Communication?

Perhaps I should begin this section by asking my question a bit differently:why is there a need for Jian et al. to have written this article in the first place?One strong catalyst lies back in Prichard's (2006) argument that there is organ­izational communication as mostly practised in the USand there is everyone else.My sense is that most of the angst over 'is it communication or is it discourse' lieson the organizational communication side and reflects the pull discourse exertsin the global marketplace of ideas as the conceptual covering term at the expenseof organizational communication.

At present we are witnessing a migration of non-US scholars into the organ­izational communication/discourse field - driven by such forces as growth in thetertiary sector, a natural recognition that communication/discourse is importantin organizations, and, perhaps most importantly, funding models that rewardscholars for publishing in highly regarded journals, especially highly regardedUS-based journals. Discourse as a term tends to rest more comfortably withnon-US scholars as does a broader field identity with organizational studies.Right now, I see the stronger pull, the stronger force for thought leadership,toward scholars knowing and identifying with what we do in terms of 'discourse',as seen in my own situation as recounted above.

Organizational communication scholars will have to come to grips with thisglobal market force in the near term. The marketplace will move on, it is efficientafter all, with or without organizational communication scholars.2 Just as wehave the responsibility to be fluent and engaged in both the discourse side and

Barker: Directions for thought leadership in discourse and communication 337

the communication side of collective practice, we organizational communicationscholars also have the responsibility for positioning and integrating the fieldeffectively within the global marketplace. We can create much more positivevalue as organizational scholars if we accept this responsibility and work activelyto make it happen.

Jian et al. have done us a valuable service by surveying the state of the art forhow we know and use the terms discourse and communication. We could all be

quite happy just debating the finer points of these definitions among ourselves,but that would be both un skilful and, ultimately, dangerous. We would be muchbetter served by using this assessment as a point for us to consider the value thatwe, as discourse/communication scholars of organizations, are creating rightnow and how we ought to create that value on into the future. As such, Jian et al.have given us as a strong inducement to move forward toward a place exception­ally difficult to reach but ultimately exceptionally rewarding to find.

NOTES

1. Eventually someone will point out that if we are honest with each other we willadmit that what we have ever really been talking about is actually rhetoric. But thatis another story.

2. A good example of the field moving on is the direction taken by the rapidly inter­nationalizing Association for Business Communication.

REFERENCES

Cronen, y.E. (2001) 'Practical Theory, Practical Art, and the Pragmatic-Systemic Accountof Inquiry', Communication Theory 11: 14-35.

Prichard, C. (2006) 'Global Politics, Academic Dispositions, and the Tilting of OrganizationalCommunication: A Provocation to a Debate' , Management Communication Quarterly 19:638-44.•

JAM ESR. BAR K E R is Professor of Organizational Theory and Strategy in the Departmentof Strategy and Human Resource Management at the Waikato Management Schoolin New Zealand. He is the editor of Management Communication Quarterly and studiesthe development of sustainable knowledge, innovation, and change initiatives and theconsequences of these initiatives on organizational systems, markets, and governancepractices. ADDRESS: Professor of Organizational Theory and Strategy. Department ofStrategy and Human Resource Management, Waikato Management School, WaikatoUniversity, Hamilton 3240, New Zealand. [email: jbarker@waikato.ac.nz]

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DEBATE

Images of the communication­discourse relationship

LINDA L PUTNAM

U NIVE RSITY OF CALI FOR N lA-SANTA BAR BARA, USA•

331

11Discourse & Communicatiol

Copyright © 200!SAGE Publications

(Los Angeles. London. New Delh

and Singapore:www,sagepublicationuom

Vol 2(3): 339-345

10,'177/'7504813080919'6

This essay explores the discourse-communication relationship through exam­ining four metaphors of communication. It draws from historical roots in com­munication to reaffirm Jian et aI.'s position that discourse and communicationare separate constructs. It reinforces this position through uncovering twoadditional perspectives on the relationship between these constructs: discourseinteracting with non-linguistic elements to produce the communication processand communication and discourse as symbiotic. mutually interdependent, andreflexively intertwined. It argues that these last two perspectives are robust waysto conceptualize the discourse-communication relationship - more robust thanthe ingredient, resource, isomorphic. and mediator images.

What particularly intrigued me about the article, 'Organizational Discourseand Communication: The Progeny of Proteus' were the many images of thecommunication-discourse relationship that this study uncovered. These imagesemerged from the characteristics of the two constructs employed in variousstudies as well as from presumptions about their relationships. Drawing frommetaphors of organizational communication (Putnam and Boys. 2006; Putnamet aI., 1996), this article continues to explore the communication-discourserelationship through taking a stand in favor of their distinctiveness. It alignsthis distinction with historical roots in the communication discipline and itexamines four select metaphors of communication that emerge in the Jianet aI. (this issue) article. Overall, it cautions scholars to attend to what becomescenter stage and what remains in the shadows in conceptualizing discourseand communication.

The basic premise of this essay is that communication and discourseare separate but interrelated constructs; thus, my position echoes Jian et aI.'sstance on this issue. For someone raised in the field of communication, myacademic schooling tended to treat discourse as one of the many features ofcommunication. Courses and textbooks on communication theory (Craigand Muller, 2007; Littlejohn and Foss, 2005; Miller. 2005) offer an array of

340 Discourse & Communication 2(3)

approaches in which discourse is only one feature or does not appear as acentral element of communication. While many of these approaches are rootedin information theories, others focus on communication and social cognition,influence and persuasion, social exchange, deception. message productionand processing, non-verbal communication, and emotional expression(Knapp and Daly, 2002; Manusov and Patterson, 2006). Theories of new mediaand media effects in communication are even broader in scope and typicallyfurther removed from discourse studies (Jensen. 2002; Lievrouw and Livingstone,2006; McQuail, 2005). Thus, to treat discourse and communication as synonym­ous and interchangeable ignores a sizeable portion of the communication field.

The emergence of discourse studies in the communication discipline alsotreats the two constructs as distinct. Historically, speech communicationscholars viewed language from rhetorical and literary traditions that centeredon figures of speech, meaning, and audiences while social scientific scholars inthe field embraced the linguistic traditions. especially conversational analysis,speech acts. and pragmatics.

The linguistic turn in the social sciences bridges this gap, especially withbig 'D' Discourse infusing critical/cultural studies of media; rhetorical studies;research on gender, race, and ethnicity; and organizational communication.Even though the two traditions have come together, the historical roots of thefield and assumptions about language reinforce the position that discourse andcommunication are different but closely related constructs. The issue then ishow are they related and how do theoretical notions of communication castthem in different ways?

The role of discourse in metaphors of communicationAs this overview suggests, communication scholars invoke different metaphorsfor both communication and discourse, but especially for their relationship.A metaphor is a way of seeing a thing as if it were something else (Lakoff andJohnson, 1980). Metaphors tie the familiar to the unfamiliar, link abstract con­structs to concrete images, and highlight certain features while suppressingothers (Hawkes, 1972). Metaphors also cast some elements as figure and othersas ground. In their discussion of the different meanings of communication.Jian et aI. allude to four metaphors of communication; namely, the conduit, thesymbol, process, and co-construction (or constitutive). Each of these metaphorscasts discourse in a different role and presents a different relationship betweenthe two constructs. This essay aims to unpack the role of discourse in thesemetaphors and compares this analysis with Jian et al.'s four perspectives onthe discourse-communication relationship.

The conduit metaphor treats communication as the transfer of information,ideas. and feelings. Studies that conceptualize communication as sending andreceiving messages, offering information, targeting message flow, providingfeedback, and employing particular media embrace this metaphor. Interesting,discourse is not figure or even ground in the conduit metaphor of communication.

Putnam: Images of the communication-discourse relationship 3-

What is troubling from Jian et aI's survey of literature is the prevalence of thisnarrow and simplistic view of communication. In the conduit metaphor, the twoconstructs are not only distinct, but even disassociated, until a researcher putsthem together to conduct a particular study.

The other three metaphors rely on different features of communicationthereby situating discourse in a more pivotal role. The symbol metaphor privil­eges meaning, sensemaking. and interpretation as the locus of communication.Symbols typically stand for or suggest something else, often through associationor convention (Saussure, 1983). Drawing from literary traditions. discoursestudies on stories, narratives, rituals, irony, and paradox often embrace this meta­phor and integrate discursive aspects of symbols with meaning constructionlinked to actors, audiences, and texts. Both little 'd' discourse as talk and big 'D'discourse as historically rooted frames play important roles in this metaphor.For example, scholars might examine the symbolic meanings of narratives.schemas, or the language of antagonists/protagonists in stories about corporatesocial responsibility (little 'd') or they might analyze how societal narrativesgrant symbolic privilege to some actors while constraining others (big 'D'). Thus,in the symbol metaphor, discourse enables communication through facilitatingmeaning construction.

The process metaphor parallels Jian et al.'s view of communication as socialinteraction. This metaphor highlights the dynamic and ever-changing natureof communication as it evolves through sequences of verbal and non-verbal cues.An image of communication that fits this metaphor is an ever-flowing stream.Like a stream, communication has no clear beginning, middle, and ending. Theprocess keeps moving even when actors try to stop it. Even though individualsbracket off episodes of talk for reflection or try to retract what was said, the processof communication continues. Social interactions build on past communicationand extend into future encounters. Thus, communication addresses such processissues as emergence, uniqueness, and connection. as Jian et al. point out.

Discourse plays a fundamental role in structuring communication asan ongoing process. On the discourse level, syntax and form shape interactionsequences and speech acts influence functions of social interaction. On themeso-level, discourse infuses the framing of experiences and the interpretativerepertoires or habitual themes and lines of argument that actors invoke(Wetherell, 1998). Meanings about content and relationship issues emergefrom the interface of language with sequences and patterns of interaction (Jianet aI.). Non-verbal cues, such as paralanguage, facial expressions, proxemics,and body language, interplay with talk and text to shape relational messages ofdominance, closeness, and likeability. In this metaphor, discourse interacts withnon-linguistic features to produce the ongoing nature of communication.

Co-construction or constitution, the fourth metaphor of communication.grows out of the symbol and process perspectives as they create, maintain, andchange social reality. AsJian et al. note, this view of communication privileges thejoint or co-developed system that arises from negotiating meanings, co-producingsymbol systems, and working out issues of legitimacy and identity. Prominent

342 Discourse & Communication 2(3)

features of communication (e.g. dynamic ongoing interactions, media, audiences,non-verbal messages) interplay with critical elements of discourse (e.g. syntax,abstractions, historical and cultural fields of knowledge) to co-produce socialreality.

In the metaphor of co-construction. both discourse and communicationoperate at multiple levels of abstraction (both little 'd' and big '0') that span timeand space. For example, communication and discourse interface when actorsrely on memory traces of past interactions to negotiate discourse strategies and

. to legitimate new meanings. Thus, in the co-construction metaphor, communi­cation and discourse work in tandem to constitute social reality through linkingsocial interaction to textual forms.

Discourse then plays a very different role in the four metaphors of communi­cation. In the conduit approach, discourse and communication are independentand isolated from each other. Even though messages comprise words andsentences, concerns for transmission, information, and media typically subsumelinguistic features. In the symbol metaphor, discourse enables meaning; thus,it parallels Jian et al.'s notion of discourse as a resource for communication.Discourse then becomes a building block that facilitates communication asmeaning construction.

The process metaphor reveals a different type of relationship betweencommunication and discourse. Rather than serving an instrumental role as aresource or building block, discourse interacts with non-linguistic elements toproduce or shape the process nature of communication. Specifically, through dis­course and non-linguistic features, sequences and patterns of communicationparallel, contradict, or complement each other. For example, the co-orientationprocess of communication draws on and parallels language structures thatemerge in conversations and texts (Taylor and Robichaud. 2004). Also. Brownand Coupland (2005) illustrate how listening and silence complement talkand interaction. Thus, in this metaphor, discourse produces and shapes com­munication as a dynamic. ongoing process.

In the co-construction metaphor, communication and discourse are sym­biotic and mutually interdependent. Symbiosis is a close union of two dissimilarconstructs in a mu tually beneficial relationship (Webster's. 1981). This metaphordepicts an intimate closeness but one with clear distinctions between the twoconcepts. Communication as co-construction emerges in discourse as it shapesongoing interactions that in turn constitute social reality. In this metaphor,both little 'd' and big '0' Discourse accomplish communication. reflexively.That is, communication as a dynamic ongoing pattern reflects back on languagein ways that define or transform communicative situations (Bateson, 1972). Inlike manner, features of discourse, such as the naming or labeling of a situation,reflect back on communication and constrain or enable it. Thus, in this metaphor,communication and discourse are symbiotic, mutually interdependent, andreflexively intertwined.

How do these relationships between discourse and communication com­pare with the four that Jian et al. identify in their article? They set forth four types

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Putnam: Images of the communication-discourse relationship 343

of relationships (presented in a different order than appears here): 1) discourseas one of the many elements of communication: 2) D/discourse as the resourcesfor communication; 3) discourse and communication as synonymous; and 4)Discourse as operating through communication.

The first relationship, discourse as one of the many elements of communi­cation, treats discourse as an ingredient or part of a larger whole. While it seemssimilar to the conduit metaphor, research on information flow, communicationnetworks, and media can easily exist without discourse (and typically does) .Hence, discourse in the conduit metaphor is typically excluded or in the distantbackground. Moreover, many communication scholars treat discourse as

simply an ingredient or part of the larger communication whole without fullyconsidering how this ingredient relates to other elements of communication,Hence, this part/whole relationship is often vague or underdeveloped.

The perspective that treats Dldiscourse as a resource for communicationunpacks the part/whole function, but positions discourse instrumentally as atool for communication. Similar to the symbol metaphor, discourse emerges asa building block or a tool for meaning construction. The tool image of discourse,however, shortchanges its potential by focusing only on its servitude role.

The third perspective that Jian et al. identify is discourse and communicationas synonyms. In this perspective, the two constructs are isomorphic: that is.identical in form, shape, and structure. This perspective did not surface in the fourmetaphors of communication. Hence, equating discourse with communicationor treating the two 'terms' as interchangeable is not well grounded in com­munication theory. Moreover, isomorphism differs from symbiosis, the imageof the communication-discourse relationship in the constitutive metaphor.Symbiosis highlights the interconnectedness of two distinct constructs whileisomorphism treats them as identical. Since they are dissimilar, they will likelyhave different forms and structures; may function differently in meaning con­struction; and may elicit different strategies and tactics. In effect, treating com­munication and discourse as isomorphic may shortchange both constructs.

The fourth perspective that Jian et al. identify is Big 'D' takes effect throughcommunication. This relationship did not surface in the four metaphorsof communication. In this perspective. discourse moves to the foreground andcommunication to the background. Communication becomes a mediator thatintercedes among multiple discourses to normalize and control actors. What ismissing in this account is the way that social interaction or the communicationprocess performs this mediating role. By not addressing it, communicationbecomes shortchanged in this relationship.

This essay positions communication as the focal point to unpack the roleof discourse in the four metaphors. Another article might explicate differentmetaphors of discourse and the role that communication plays in these meta­phors. Through examining different metaphors of communication, this articleuncovers two additional perspectives on the communication-discourse relation­ship: 1) discourse as interacting with non-linguistic elements to produce or shapethe communication process and 2) communication and discourse as symbiotic.

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mutually interdependent, and reflexively intertwined. I contend that both viewsprovide a more robust treatment of the communication-discourse relationshipthan do the ingredient, resource, isomorphic, and mediator images.

To enhance theory building, scholars need to conceptualize both constructsexplicitly and to attend to their interrelationships. Failure to do so often resultsin underdeveloped constructs, unarticulated presumptions, and subservientrelations between two equally vital elements of organizational studies.

REFERENCES

Bateson, G. (1972) Steps to an Ecology of the Mind. New York: Ballantine Books.Brown, A.D. and Coupland, C. (2005) 'Sounds of Silence: Graduate Trainees, Hegemony

and Resistance', Organization Studies 26: 1049-69.Craig, R.T. and Muller, H.L. (2007) Theorizing Communication: Readings across Traditions.

Los Angeles, CA: SAGE.Hawkes, D.F. (1972) Metaphor. London: Methuen.Jensen, K. (2002) Handbook of Media and Communication Research: Qualitative and

Quantitative. New York: Routledge.Knapp, M.L. and Daly, J.A. (eds) (2002) Handbook of Interpersonal Communication, 3rd edn.

Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

Lakoff, G. and Johnson, M. (1980) Metaphors We Live By. Chicago, IL:University of ChicagoPress.

Lievrouw, L.A. and Livingstone, S.M. (eds) (2006) Handbook of New Media: Social Shapingand Social Consequences of ICTs. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

Littlejohn, S.W.and Poss, K.A. (2005) Theoriesof Human Communication, 8th edn. Belmont,CA:Wadsworth.

Manusov, V. and Patterson, M.L. (eds) (2006) Handbook of Nonverbal Communication.Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

McQuail, D. (2005) Mass Communication Theory, 5th edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.Miller, K. (2005) Communication Theories: Perspectives. Processes, and Contexts, 2nd edn.

New York: McGraw Hill.

Putnam, L.L.and Boys, S. (2006) 'Revisiting Metaphors of Organizational Communication',In S.R. Clegg, C. Hardy, T.B. Lawrence and W. Nord (eds) The SAGE Handbook ofOrganizational Studies, 2nd edn .. pp. 541-76. London: SAGE.

Putnam, L.L., Phillips, N. and Chapman, P. (1996) 'Metaphors of Communication andOrganization', in S.R. Clegg, C. Hardy and W. Nord (eds) Handbook of OrganizationalStudies, pp. 375-408. London: SAGE.

Saussure, F.de (1983) Course in General Linguistics. La Salle, IL: Open Court.Taylor, J.R. and Robichaud, D. (2004) 'Pinding the Organization in the Communication:

Discourse as Action and Sensemaking', Organization 11: 395-413.Webster's New CollegiateDictionary (1981) Springfield, MO: G. & C. Merriam.Wetherell, M. (1998) 'Positioning and Interpretive Repertoires: Conversation Analysis

and Post-structuralism In Dialogue' , Discourse & Society 9: 387-412.

Putna m: Images of the communication-ciiscourse relationship 345•LI N DA l. PUTNAM (PhO, University of Minnesota, 1977) is a Professor In the Depart­ment of Communication at the University of California-Santa Barbara. Prior to thisappointment, she was a Regent's Professor and the George T. and Gladys H. AbellProfessor at Texas A&M University. Her current research interests Include discourse andorganizations, negotiation and conflict management, and emotions in organizations.She is the co-editor of six books, including Organizational Communication: Major Works(2006); The SAGE Handbook of Organizational Discourse (2004), and The New Handbookof Organizational Communication (2001). ADDRESS: Department of Communication,University of California-Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-4020, USA.(em ail: lputnam@comm.ucsb.edu]

DEBATE

Communication and discourse:

is the bridge language?Response to lian et ale

JAMES R. TAYLOR

UNIVERSITE DE MONTREAL, CANADA•

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www.sagepublications.comVol 2(3):347-352

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As Jian et al. note, there is, ironically, frequently a disconnect between therespective discursive practices of those who explicitly identify with discourseand communication. Although discourse is increasingly being thematized incommunication studies, communication remains a black hole in the discourseliterature. This absence of constructive dialogue between the two communitiesappears to originate in their differing treatment of language. In this response,I argue for a view of language that could, if developed, provide a platform for amore fruitful dialogue between the discourse and communication disciplines.

I confess to a prejudice. Certain words produce in me something like anallergic reaction. Culture used to have that kind of effect, especially during theera when you could hardly open a management journal without reading about'organizational culture'. Another word that generates pretty much the sameresponse is power. Lately, I have been having suspiciously similar symptomswhen I read about discourse. I started out with a favorable prejudice toward theword, since it connotes for me something I am deeply committed to, namelythe primary role of language in human communication, and the constitutionof society. That which distinguishes us above all else from the other species whoinhabit this earth is, after all, that we are addicted to using language. We are, forbetter or for worse, discursively enabled creatures. So what is the problem, I askmyself: why am I lately getting those familiar symptoms?

Jian et aI. have come to my rescue. My alienation, I discovered, may be becausethe self-consciously discourse-oriented people have been disconnecting their

discourse from my preoccupation, which is communication. Jian et aI. report thatarticles which directly focus on discourse typically relegate communication tothe sidelines: in at least 60 percent of them the word 'communication' does noteven figure once and, where it is used, it is mostly in passing. Inspired by theirfinding I ran my own mini-test. Take, to start with, an article I greatly admire,Alvesson and Karreman (2000). The word communication crops up only twice,once in the phrase 'communications theory' (notice the plural) and then in 'a

348 Discourse & Communication 2(3)

question of dialogue and communication, and so on'. I skimmed Oswick et al.(2000) and Grant and Hardy (2004), stars in the discourse literature, and gotzero mentions of communication: the word was not even used once, much lesslinked to discourse.

Okay, I said to myself, now I understand. If there is a gulf, it's not entirely ofmy own making. Communication does not seem to be seen as relevant to discoursescholars. (And I immediately concede the corollary: communication scholarstend to be vague in what they mean by 'discourse'.)

On one point, however, I do have a cavil about a comment made by Jianet aI., one that echoes an earlier observation by Alvesson and Karreman. Bothemphasize the variety of interpretations that the word 'discourse' has generated.I cannot say they are wrong, since they have been more systematic than I havein combing sources. But this heterogeneity is not what I glean from my personalreading of the literature. Again I decided to conduct my own investigation, thistime with the help of a computer. I searched how the terms 'discourse' and 'dis­cursive' are used in some of my favorite journals (including Discourse & Society,

Discourse Studies, Human Relations, Organization and Organization Studies). I limitedmyself to abstracts and key words, on the assumption that what the authorshighlight there are what appear to be the most significant connections that theword 'discourse' has for them. What stood out for me, as I progressed, was not thevariety of allusions, but their homogeneity. Here is a sampling of the connotativeties that I collected, in no particular order:

legitimacy: problematics of agency; emancipatory; resistance and power: decen­tering of agency; power/knowledge; embodiment; power effects:power relations; arhetoric of rationality; elites' assembly of emotional displays; resistance and micro­emancipation; repression and subordination; ideological stance; resistance atwork; identity construction and regulation; institutionalized form of control;disciplinatory practice; managerial control: disciplinary mechanisms; identitydemands; pervasive surveillance; subjectification; mobilizing collectiveresistance;structures of domination; deep structure power issues; managerial discoursesof the entrepreneurial self; inequality and exclusion: power of silence; languageas a medium of social control and power; site of contestation; ideological re­production and transformation; employee subjection; socio-political struggle;sociallyconstructed nature of 'reality'.

Enoughl Forgive me if I detect a Great Story here, of an evil system aided byits opportunistic henchmen, the managers, which has subjected a brave com­munity of workers to an oppressive, cruel empire, exemplified in the power of theoppressors and the impotence of the enslaved, who have been brainwashed by awizard into become unwilling instruments in their own subjection, other thanfor isolated acts of resistance and a generalized tacit strategy of silence.

What I didn't find was much variety in the accounts. And for sure com­munication got short shrift (the word was almost never mentioned). By impli­cation, communication is no more than a passive medium for the effecting andlegitimizing of power relationships. The problem with concepts such as powerand legitimacy, however, is that, as Bruno Latour has more than once pointed out,

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they are not so much that which explains, as that which needs to be explained ­an explanandum not an explanans.

In what remains of my response to this excellent article by Jian et aI.,I offer my take on the discourse-communication link, one that does not denythe omnipresence of relations of authority in society, but aims to explore theirorigin in communication. I leave open for the moment the possibility that, farfrom being mere victims, subjected to authority, we are, all of us, critics as wellas criticized, complicit in its constitution, and have been from the beginning.In developing my exposition I take as my starting point Jian et al.'s observationthat organizational communicatioll scholars see organization as constitutedin and sustained through communication.

The initial remarks of John Austin, in delivering the Harvard UniversityWilliam James Lectures in 1955, have continued to delight me over the years.'It was for too long the assumption of philosophers,' he began, 'that the businessof a "statement" Can only be to "describe" some state of affairs, or to "statesome fact", which it must do either truly or falsely' (Austin, 1962: 1). Austineven invented a word to capture what he meant: constative. This was also howcommunication scholars for too long also conceived of the communication­organization link: people who send messages about facts to each other in anorganizational context. This is discourse as a detachable product and reflec­tion of organization: a mechanism not a source.

Austin then counterposed another neologism, perjormative, to convey theidea that utterances framed in the guise of language are not merely descriptive,but are literally 'the doing of an action' (1962: 5). Contemporary linguists haveconsolidated Austin's intuition. They observe that every utterance in languageis characterized by what they term modality (Bybee and Fleischman, 1995;Fowler et aI., 1979; Halliday, 2002; Palmer, 1986). If the core proposition ofthe utterance is intrinsically constative, in the sense of pointing to a selectedchunk of reality and stating something about it ('snow [past tense] last night'),its modalization is what makes it performative. As Bybee and Fleischman(1995: 2) phrase it, the common denominator of the considerable variety ofmodal qualifications that language affords 'is the addition of a supplement oroverlay of meaning to the most neutral semantic value of the proposition ofan utterance, namely factual and declarative'. Performance - crucial point ­implies audience (i.e. a communication situation). Modality, they have found,is 'inextricably embedded in contexts of social interaction and, consequently,cannot be described adequately apart from their contextual moorings in inter­active discourse' (Bybee and Fleischman, 1995: 3). You cannot even read themeaning of discourse with assurance unless you study it in situ; in people's talk.The performative impact depends on the uptake.

Austin's radical innovation in 1955 is now a commonplace. And yet theconstative/performative distinction is still relevant. It bears repeating: every

constative utterance is simultaneously perjormative. The organization is not merelysustained through communication (to use Jian et al.'s term), as an alreadyestablished reality, but is literally constituted in it. Anyone who has followed the

350 Discourse & Communication 2(3)

marital patterns of Western society over the past century knows that whilethe institution of marriage has been sustained by the practice of couples who getmarried, nevertheless, deviations from the norm have, over time, transformedthe institution itself. Marriage is not the same thing as it used to be 'when I wasa boy'. It didn't change by itself; people through their practices and their choiceschanged it, in interaction with each other.

This is how I construe Jian et aI.'s concept of organization, as that whichis constituted through communication. People do the constituting, everywhereand all the time, both in what they do, and in the meaning they attach to whatthey do. People are constructing 'reality' through their talk and its mediatedequivalents, in two ways. First, they establish the likelihood of the factual statusof what they take to be the current state of affairs. Bybee and Fleischman referto this as epistemic modality and define it as 'the possibility or necessity of thetruth of propositions' (p. 4). It is, they write, 'a matter of degree' (p. 4). Language(Halliday, 2002) offers a multitude of ways to express epistemic modality: may

be (possibly), wiII be (probably), must be (certainly), may not be (possibly not),and so on. Tags to sentences like 'I think' or 'so I've heard' also work to conveymodality. Even tone of voice is an indicator.

The same principle applies to the second function of modality (Bybee andFleischman, call it deontic, Halliday prefers to use the term modulation). Deonticmodality focuses on notions of obligation and permission: what you can do,what you should do, what you must do and what you should not do. To besure, patterns of authority are reconstituted, but they are also continually(if incrementally) being transformed, in the flowing stream of daily usage.

What the linguists are highlighting are the 'affordances' of language(Gibson, 1979): not merely what you can do with it, but also what you end upwith when you do use it. It is through languaging interactively (communicating,in other words) that we determine what we take to be true, and what is to bedone about it. To use Karl Weick's (1995) term, we enact organizational reality:construct it as something we grasp conceptually and relate to pragmatically. Butit also enacts us.

There is, of course, no reason to limit ourselves, when we study the afford­ances of language, to examining only verbs, verbal phrases and their modifiers.Pronouns, for an example, are a way to establish identity. Member A interrogatesmember B on a matter of fact in the establishment of a company budgetaryaccount and by doing so lays claim to an identity while simultaneously attri­buting another to the person being questioned as well as to others (Faureet aI., forthcoming). Member A openly criticizes the advance preparation ofmember B because of their inadequate preparation for a briefing and, in sodoing, establishes an assumed hierarchical differential in status (Taylor andVirgili, 2008).

These people are not merely constructing the organization as an external

reality that frames their activities. They are reflexively, retrospectively andrecursively constructing the organization from the inside: fabricating text andcontext at one and the same time (Garfinkel, 1967). They do so by authoring

Taylor: Communication and discourse 351

accounts, but those same accounts reflexively constitute the frame of theirinteraction. Features such as power, subjectivity and legitimated knowledge areboth what they do performatively but also who they are. There is same-ness, butthe 'same' is never quite the same: it is infected with the virus of difference.

Alvesson and Karreman (2000: 1147) point out very sensibly that 'themove from discourse to Discourse includes a shift in perspective' in the directionof generalizing: 'grandiosation and muscularization'. On the other hand,Discourse (capital D) 'should be grounded and shown'. In communication, asI read them. I personally do not see how you can disconnect discourse from itscommunicative embedding.

I am not contesting the emphasis of the discourse community of researcherson issues of power, legitimacy and naturalization of modes of knowing. Theseare what I study too, although sometimes with different labels. Both of ourways of knowing, I am convinced, need to be cross-fertilized. Maybe the time hascome? Jian et ai. at least offer us a starting point. To me, the common groundthat is available to us - a bridge waiting to be exploited - is the role of languageitself: how it not only mediates communication and forms the basis of dis­course, but how it ultimately shapes both communication and discourse, mostlywithout our ever noticing.

Let's talk.

REFERENCES

Aivesson, M. and Karreman, D. (2000) 'Varietles of Discourse: On the Study ofOrganizations through DiscourseAnalysis', Human Relations 53(9): 1125-49.

Austin, J.L.(1962) How to Do Things with Words. Oxford:OxfordUniversityPress.Bybee, J. and Fleischman, S. (1995) Modality in Grammar and Discourse. Amsterdam:

John Benjamins.Faure, B., Giroux, H. and Taylor, J.R. (forthcoming) ~uthority in Action: Accounts,

Accounting and Accountability'.Fowler,R.,Hodge.B.,Kress,G.andTrew,T.(1979) Language and Control. London:Routledge

& KeganPaul.Garfinkel,H. (1967) Studies in Ethnomethodology. EnglewoodCliffs,NJ:Prentice Hall.Gibson, J. (1979) The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Boston, MA:Houghton

Mifflin.Grant, D.and Hardy, C. (2004) 'Introduction: Struggles with Organizational Discourse',

Organization Studies 25(5): 5-13.Halliday,M.A.K.(2002) Text and Discourse. London/NewYork:Continuum.Oswick.C.,Keenoy.T.W.and Grant. D.(2000) 'Discourse.Organizationsand Organizing:

Concepts,Objectsand Subjects'. Human Relations 53(9): 1115-23.Palmer, F.R.(1986) Mood and Modality. Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress.Taylor,J.R. & Virgili,S. (2008) 'Why ERPsDisappoint: The Importance of Getting the

OrganizationalTextRight', in B.Grabot,A.Mayereand 1. Bazzet(eds)A Socio-technical

Insight on ERP Systems and Organizational Change. pp. 59-84. London:Springer-Verlag.Weick,K.E.(1995) Sensemaking in Organizations. Thousand Oaks,CA:SAGE.

352 Discourse & Communication 2(3)•JAMES R. TAYlOR is Professor'Emeritus, Communication, Universitede Montreal. He isauthor or co-author of severalbookson communication theory,of which the most recentis Communication as Organizing (co-editors, F. Cooren and E. Van Every,published byLawrence Erlbaum, now Routledge). His articles have appeared in numerous journalsand edited books. A major international conference was held in Montreal in May 2008'to pay tribute to his work and career'. ADDR ESS: 3051 Cedar Avenue. Montreal, QC,Canada H3Y 1Y8. (emaiI:j.etaylor@sympatico.ca]

DEBATE

The debate about organizationaldiscourse and communication:a rejoinder

GUOWEI JIANClEVELAND STATE UNIVERSITY. USA

AMY M. SCHMISSEUR

UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS. USA

GAIL T. FAIRHURST

UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI, USA•

353

11Discourse 8< Communication

Copyright © 2008SAGEPublications.

(LosAngeles, London. New Delhiand Singapore)

www.sagepublications.comVol 2(3): 353-355

10.117711750481308091924

An ancient Chinese story goes as follows:

In the Tang Dynasty,Chang Jian, a local poet, heard the news that the famous poetZhao Gu was to visit a local temple. BeforeZhao Gu's arrival. Chang Jian came tothe temple and composed two stanzas on the wall, intentionally leaving the poemunfinished. Seeing half of a poem when visiting the temple, Zhao Gu completeditwith twomore stanzas and created a poem everlasting. Later,peoplecoinedan idiomto describeChang Jian's act: attract jade by laying a brick.

This story best captures our intention when embarking on this project Gianet aI., this issue): to stimulate an interdisciplinary dialogue that would cross­fertilize ideas about organizational discourse and communication. The scholarsthat we selected did not disappoint; to them and Teun van Dijk, we owe ourgratitude. From Linda Putnam, Francesca Bargiela-Chiappini, James Taylor,Mats Alvesson, Dan Kiirrreman, and James Barker, we hoped for and received anillumination of choice points and possible futures for organizational discourseand communication studies. They perceptively extended our ideas by incorpor­ating the historical, institutional. economic, and geographical realms into thediscussion. Bargiela-Chiappini and Barker, in particular, observed the dividebetween the North American and European academic traditions while empha­sizing the value of bridging this divide and encouraging us to be more reflectiveof our agential role in (re)producing and changing the rules and outcomes ofthe marketplace of ideas.

Sizing up the bricolage in this special section, we come away emboldened tocast organizational discourse and communication as interrelated, but separateterms - each worthy of their own Discourse. Indeed, organizational communi­cation and discourse studies are themselves discursive formations (Foucault,1972), which, as Foucault convincingly demonstrated, are better conceptualizedand seen as historical dispersions rather than unified, continuous, and logicalreuvres.

354 Discourse & Communication 2(3)

Nevertheless, the' Discourse of discourse', or what Bargiela-Chiappini isterming the 'rhetoric of discourse', is taking shape nicely with internationalscholars like Alvesson and Kiirreman energized by the muscularity of languagein organizational life, the richness of text, the layers of context, and key distinc­tions between little 'd' discourse and big 'D' Discourse (and points in between)as hallmarks of these features. Certainly, many debates remain - that we do notmean to minimize - as issues of power, agency, and materiality get debated inthe literature thus furthering the 'Discourse of discourse'.

Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, we see the Discourse of communication(or Bargiela-Chiappini's 'rhetoric of communication') as the new frontier. AsPutnam reminds us in her essay, it is not for want of a history or diverse metaphorsof the field to spur complex thinking about organizational communication.It is, in part, because the discourse metaphor reminds us of a key distinctionfavored by James Taylor - namely, that which communicators have 'done'(Taylor's 'text') versus their 'doing' (his 'conversation') (Taylor and Van Every,2000). For Barker, the 'doing' is a journey into 'the difficult realm of the fluidand real-time world in which any relationship exists - the real experience ofinteracting with others' (p. XX). It is a journey increasingly embarked upon byTaylor, but also John Shotter, Kevin Barge, Franc;ois Cooren, and even KarlWeick (2004) who, in the SAGE Handbook of Organizational Discourse, challengesresearchers to:

grasp more fully the dynamic, transient smoke-like character of unfoldingcontextualized conversation . , . Failure to represent conversing within flux andconversing about flux makes our textual analyses less complete than they couldbe. If we remind ourselves of the stubbornly changing character of organizationallife, we will be in a better position to talk about discoursing as well as discourse, andto demonstrate that talking is organizing. (p. 411)

Weick's 'discoursing' versus 'discourse', we presume, is the difference betweenour 'communication' and 'discourse'. As argued in our article, when organiza­tional actors are in communication, key process issues are in play such as co­creation, connection, uniqueness and emergence (Barge and Fairhurst, in press).For reasons of clarity only, we'll likely refrain from terming this 'discoursing',but there is much yet to learn and, critically, to impart to organizational actorswhose goal is to make wise choices in the moment of communication, whatAristotle termedphronesis. The scholars of practical theory (Barge, 2001; Bargeand Craig, in press; Craig and Tracy, 1995; Cronen, 1995,2001) and others inthe action science tradition of Chris Argyris and Don Schon look to be the primedevelopers of this new Discourse of communication.

At the same time, Weick's challenge, we believe, can only be met when weengage discourse and communication ('discoursing') simultaneously. Thus,we have taken pains in this dialogue to argue that organizational actors mustalways operate in communication and through discourse. The emerging individualDiscourses of discourse and communication notwithstanding, these concepts areirrevocably intertwined and destined for terminological confusion. But that's okay

....•

Jian et a/.: A rejoinder 355

by us - as long as these progeny of Proteus spread and multiply in the researchagendas of today's organizational scientists.

Indeed, our journey here has revealed that what matters most is the opennessand willingness to collectively engage, extend, support, and even challengeour existing foundations of meaning, one brick, one layer, one perspective at atime.

REFERENCES

Barge. J.K.(2001) 'Practical Theory as Mapping, Engaged Reflection, and TransformativePractice', Communication Theory 11: 5-13.

Barge, J.K. and Craig, R.T. (in press) 'Practical Theory'. in L.R. Frey and K.N. Cissna (eds)Handbook of Applied Communication. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Barge. J.K.and Fairhurst, G. (in press) Living Leadership: A Systemic Constructionist Approach.

Leadership.

Craig, R.T. and Tracy, K. (1995) 'Grounded Practical Theory: The Case of IntellectualDiscussion', Communication Theory 5: 248-72.

Cronen, v.B. (1995) 'Practical Theory and the Tasks Ahead for Social Approaches toCommunication', in W. Leeds-Hurwitz (ed.) Social Approaches to Communication,

pp. 217- 42. New York: Guilford Press.Cronen, V.E.(2001) 'Practical Theory, Practical Art, and the Pragmatic-Systemic Account

of Inquiry', Communication Theory 11: 14-35.Foucault, M. (1972) The Archeology of Knowledge and the Discourse on Language, trans.

A.M.S. Smith. London: Tavistock Publications.

Taylor, J.R. and Van Every, E. (2000) The Emergent Organization: Communication as Its Site

and Surface. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Weick, K. (2004) 1\ Bias for Conversation: Acting Discursively in Organizations', in

D. Grant, C. Hardy, C. Oswick and L. Putnam (eds) The SAGE Handbook of Organizational

Discourse, pp. 405-12. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.