The Meaning of Relationship in Interpersonal Communication

(Hardback)

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Despite a growing emphasis on relationship studies in interpersonal communication, serious attention to the conceptual meaning of relationship has been limited. The purpose of this volume is to explore the meaning and use of "relationship" in interpersonal communication studies. The contributors to this volume, representatives of related, but differing perspectives, outline definitional boundaries and conceptual implications of the term stemming from their particular ontological and epistemological approaches. This volume provides an engaging and provocative examination of "relationship" by seasoned writers who are committed to seeing the field with new eyes. As such, the book will be invaluable to scholars and researchers in the field.

Reviews

"Conville, Rogers and company chart the essences of relationships in this text, and the result is an atlas of helpful and inviting conceptual maps of interpersonal territory....The book will be long valued, not only because it provides some answers, but because it poses such interesting questions that will undoubtedly help to set the scholarly agenda for years to come. The relationship and communication literatures are in need of this book and of the discussion and debate it will generate."-Barbara M. Montgomery Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences Millersville University
"This book is absolutely necessary reading for students/scholars of interpersonal communication and/or personal relationships. This endeavor is as important in the field of communication as defining terms like "communication" and "interpersonal communication."-Kathryn Dindia University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
"This book is must reading for scholars and students of interpersonal communication. It provides rich, thoughtful analyses of the widely used but ill-defined term "relationship." Essays in the book reveal how various views of relationship reflect assumptions about human beings and our ways of knowing and connecting with others."-Julia T. Wood Hairston Professor of Communication Studies
"Many of the ideas presented in the book challenge traditional notions and provide the reader with much to think about....[B]y reading this book, students and scholars of interpersonal communication will find that the notion of relationship should not be taken for granted."-Journal of Marriage and the Family
Many of the ideas presented in the book challenge traditional notions and provide the reader with much to think about....[B]y reading this book, students and scholars of interpersonal communication will find that the notion of relationship should not be taken for granted.-Journal of Marriage and the Family

Author Bio

RICHARD L. CONVILLE is Professor in the Department of Speech Communication at the University of Southern Mississippi. L. EDNA ROGERS is Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Utah.