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Encyclopedia of Communication Theory Metacommunication

Contributors: Author:Peter A. Andersen Edited by: Stephen W. Littlejohn & Karen A. Foss Book Title: Encyclopedia of Communication Theory Chapter Title: "Metacommunication" Pub. Date: 2009 Access Date: September 9, 2020 Publishing Company: SAGE Publications, Inc. City: Thousand Oaks Print ISBN: 9781412959377 Online ISBN: 9781412959384 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781412959384.n242 Print pages: 651-654

© 2009 SAGE Publications, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This PDF has been generated from SAGE Knowledge. Please note that the pagination of the online version will vary from the pagination of the print book.

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http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781412959384.n242

Metacommunication is communication regarding communication. The word meta came from the Greek word for along with or about; thus, the simplest definition of metacommunication is communication aboutcommunication. Metacommunication is a common human activity; indeed, in a variety of ways people are almost continuously communicating about communication both nonverbally or verbally.

Similarly, metacognition is thinking about thinking and metamathematics examines the mathematic basis of math or what is sometimes called calculus. For each of these metas, there is an attempt to unravel the calculus or modify the underlying meaning of a phenomenon. Therefore, when people metacommunicate, they are sending messages about messages to refine the meaning of communication. Metacommunication is not always intentional. In fact it is often accomplished spontaneously and unconsciously. A related unique and remarkable quality of communication is ability to refer to, comment on, and even to modify itself, a property sometimes called reflexivity. Communication theory, the topic of this encyclopedia, is itself reflexive in that, by examining communication theoretically, human beings can alter the nature of subsequent communication itself.

In sum, virtually every communication message contains metacommunication messages that frame, modify, and contextualize the original message. Anything that frames or contextualizes communication is a form of metacommunication. This can be explicitly done though talking about communication or implicitly done through commenting about communication though nonverbal communication. The next four sections will examine four types of metacommunication: explicit metacommunication, implicit metacommunication, verbal metacommunication about nonverbal behavior, and nonverbal metacommunication about nonverbal communication.

Explicit Metacommunication: Talking about Talk

Perhaps the form of metacommunication that is easiest to understand is talking about talk. It is also the most common form of metacommunication in both the media and in interpersonal situations. People comment on other's communication behavior continuously: “Jonathan, you need to say please,” “Wow—was that a great speech,” and “You are always yelling at people.” These are examples of explicit metacommunication about talk.

Another common form of explicit metacommunication occurs when a person comments about his or her own prior statement. After telling a hurtful joke or making a critical comment, a person may say “just kidding” or “not really” to indicate how to take the comment. Apologies, excuses, and explanations are forms of metacommunication that deconstruct, clarify, or repair prior statements.

A further function of explicit metacommunication is socialization. Parents and teachers meta-communicate by saying “watch your mouth,” “say please,” or “don't interrupt.” This metacommunicative education is intended to socialize the child and to make him or her aware of manners, norms, and the conventions of his or her culture.

Explicit metacommunication about talk is sometimes the source of conflicts or arguments. Couples or families often argue about what was actually said in a prior argument, who called whom what, or the language that was used in criticizing another person. Such cycles or patterns can lead to protracted meta- communicative arguments where the participants repeat and escalate the conflict by referring to the other's hurtful words and action. Cross complaining that characterizes many interpersonal conflicts usually includes metacommunicative comments. “Don't raise your voice to me,” one person says, and in response the other says, “Well, you interrupted me!” In many conflicts, an entire series of such metacommunication squabbles occur, most of which are complaints about the others' inappropriate communication behavior. Conversely, explicit metacommunication can be used to come to understandings about conflicts and to avoid the statements that caused conflicts to spiral out of control. Couples therapy and family therapy feature considerable metacommunication about functional and dysfunctional communication patterns.

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Considerable coverage of political campaigns consists of metacommunicative references to the words and speeches of the candidates. Both media commentators and other candidates carefully scrutinize, analyze, and criticize candidates' words. Gaffes by political candidates are fuel for substantial discussion and often have extensive negative consequences to their campaigns. Sometimes clarifications, retractions, or apologies are offered by the campaign as part of the metacommunication process. Political spin doctors are professional metacommunicators who attempt to fix, retract, hype, or augment their candidate's words.

Explicit metacommunication can be illogical or paradoxical. The metacommunicative expression, “This sentence doesn't exist,” is communication about communication that is completely illogical. Similarly, metacommunicative injunctions such as “be spontaneous” or “don't think about blue giraffes” are paradoxical. Explicit metacommunication can talk about the imaginary, the ineffable, metaphysical, mystical, as well as mundane everyday discourse.

Though not always recognized by the participants, the primary topic of all communication classes and books is metacommunication. Professors measure, digest, criticize, analyze, and theorize about communication and its consequences. Indeed, communication instructors advise students to use introductions, previews, and frames as metacommunicative statements that aid the comprehension of a speech. Similarly, summaries and recapitulations are metacommunicative attempts to aid in the recall of the main points of a speech.

In contemporary discourse, the expression TMI (two much information) is a metacommunicative attempt to stop a person from communicating something that is too gross, personal, scatological, or sexual. Saying TMI is an effort to metacommunicatively shut down communication and to prevent public discussions of this topic in the future.

Implicit Metacommunication: Nonverbal Signals regarding Talk

Communication is more than talk and language; much of human communication takes place non-verbally without words or explicit symbols. Paralinguistic communication, such as tone of voice and inflection, continuously comment on and modify the meaning of words. Kinesic behaviors including gestures and facial expressions provide context for and add meaning to the spoken word. Proxemic and tactile communication modifies and provides powerful information about the relationship that in turn comments on and provides a frame for the verbal message. Eye behavior similarly provides metacommunicative cues. A list of all the forms of nonverbal metacommunication is beyond the scope of this article, but all forms of nonverbal communication provide metacommunication framing and context for the verbal message.

Scholars have observed that all communication contains both content and relationship components. The content or report element consists of what is said such as, “Please close the door.” The relationship or command element consists of how it is said—for example, with a pleasant tone of voice or angry scowl on one's face. The relationship or command element is a form of implicit metacommunication. It modifies what is said so that the message becomes “do this quickly,” “I'm kidding,” or “why did you forget to close the door?” It comments about the attitude of the sender or the relationship between the sender and receiver. Over time, patterns of this form of metacommunication will establish the nature of the relationship between the interactants. Power disparities in relationships are a function of persistent metacommunicative control moves that establish patterns of dominance and submissiveness.

Another form of implicit metacommunication is sarcasm. Sarcasm occurs when nonverbal behaviors such as tone of voice, facial expression, or eye behavior tell the receiver not to take the message literally. Incompetent senders of sarcastic messages sometimes fail to include implicit nonverbal cues causing the receiver to take the message literally. Unskilled receivers, including small children, may not understand sarcasm and are insensitive to nonverbal metacommunicative cues resulting in literal interpretations of the message. Similarly, during an intercultural interaction, one person may miss sarcasm because he or she is unfamiliar with the subtleties of cultural metacommunication.

Implicit metacommunication can even completely change the meaning of a verbal message. Consider the

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use of the word yes, a simple affirmative utterance of agreement or acquiescence. When responding to an invitation to go to dinner, one could respond, “Yes!!!!” signaling an extremely affirmative response; “Yes?” indicating ambivalent affirmation; or a vocally reluctant, negative yes that may indicate no. In the latter example, the literal meaning of the word yes is completely reversed, but only if the receiver is attuned to the paralinguistic metacommunication that communicates the reversal. This illustrates the power of implicit metacommunication; it is a second channel of communication that occurs simultaneously with the primary channel and acts to modify and even reverse its meaning.

One crucial aspect of competent communication is the use of conversational turn-taking cues. Yielding the floor to another communicator relies on implicit metacommunication cues such as audible and visible exhalations, cessation of gestures, pausing, looking directly at another interactant, and leaning back. Similarly, effective acquisition of a turn employs implicit metacommunication cues such as visible inhalations, direct eye contact, forward leans, and preparatory gestures. Indeed, without these implicit metacommunication cues, interruptions would be ubiquitous and smooth conversational behavior would be impossible.

Verbal Metacommunication about Nonverbal Behavior

Words can also be used to comment about one's own or another person's nonverbal behavior. Words often comment about the nonverbal actions of others. People make comments such as, “His hands were all over me,” “Did you see that dirty look,” or “What a delightful smile she has.” Likewise, during interaction, people often comment verbally about their own nonverbal behavior. People say “excuse me” after accidentally pushing someone in a crowd, say “thanks” for a backrub, apologize for wardrobe malfunctions, say “you should have seen my face” when surprised, or “I am still shaking” in response to fear.

Nonverbal communication lectures and courses about nonverbal communication systematically metacommunicate about nonverbal behavior. Ironically, nonverbal communication instructors and authors primarily use language to flesh out the nuances of numerous nonverbal behaviors, though occasionally pictures, film, and role playing compliment talk as instructional techniques. Theories of nonverbal communication are almost entirely language-based explanations and predictions about nonlinguistic phenomena exemplifying this third type of metacommunication.

Nonverbal Metacommunication about Nonverbal Communication

Sometimes nonverbal behavior is employed to metacommunicate about other nonverbal actions. Nonverbal actions can communicate about other individuals' nonverbal behavior. For example, a person may roll his or her eyes about inappropriate touch behavior by another person thereby meta-communicating nonverbally. Likewise, a person may smile in response to a person's attire, which constitutes a nonverbal metacommunicative evaluation. Nodding one's head in response to a pleasant backrub is one of hundreds of potential examples of this kind of metacommunication.

Likewise, nonverbal behaviors can metacommunicate one's own nonverbal communication. An aggressive gesture may be modified with a smile. An absent handshake can be apologized for with eye contact and a friendly wave of the hand. An embarrassing action can be ameliorated with an apologetic shoulder shrug. Most of these nonverbal comments on one's own nonverbal behavior occur mindlessly and spontaneously as part and parcel of ongoing communication. Proxemic and chronemic communication of others is often managed meta-communicatively. In response to an excessively long visit by another person, a series of nonverbal leave-taking cues are typically employed. So instead of asking a person to leave, cues such as looking at one's watch, leaning forward, sudden claps of the hands, and repositioning of the feet are used.

As part of childhood socialization and behavioral control, parents frequently admonish children to stop some unacceptable nonverbal behavior through nonverbal communication. Mothers will scowl when their child shoves another child at the theatre or movies. During dinner, parents may wave a finger or shake their heads

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to signal to a child to back off or stop touching.

The fact that other mammals can engage in metacommunication suggests that it is an ancient characteristic of communication. One typically nonhuman form of behavioral metacommunication is aggression displays of animals. Young mammals such as chimps, cats, dogs, and even humans may engage in play wrestling, biting, and hitting that may appear very real to the untrained eye. These adolescent aggression displays rarely result in any injuries despite menacing body language and vocalizations. Through subtle vocal, kinesic, and tactile cues, the young animals indicate that this is not real combat, but a ritualized recreational game, albeit one that may hone future fighting skills.

Theoretical Importance of Metacommunication

Metacommunication is a fundamental feature of all interaction and a central concept in communication. Implicit metacommunication characterizes all human communication because nonverbal cues continuously communicate context. Interactants are typically unaware of most metacommunication signals in ongoing interaction, though they respond to them spontaneously and mindlessly. Similarly, the viewers are often unaware of subtle metacommunication in the mass media. Metacommunication is largely a set of evolved behaviors that developed to facilitate efficient and complex human communication. Skilled communication requires competent unconscious production and recognition of subtle metacommunication signals, the result of socialization, practice, and our evolutionary ability.

• metacommunication • nonverbal communication • cues • human communication • cue taking • gestures • smiling

Peter A. Andersen http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781412959384.n242 See also

• Competence Theories • Conflict Communication Theories • Framing Theory • Kinesics • Language and Communication • Nonverbal Communication Theories • Palo Alto Group • Paralanguage • Relational Communication Theory