Broome, Benjamin J. "Dialogue Theories." Encyclopedia of Communication Theory. Ed. .

Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 2009. 302-07. SAGE Reference Online. Web. 7 Aug. 2012.

Dialogue Theories

FURTHER READINGS
ENTRY CITATION

From a communication perspective, dialogue represents a form of discourse that emphasizes

listening and inquiry, with the aims of fostering mutual respect and understanding. Dialogue allows
communicators to become aware of the different ways that individuals interpret and give meaning
to similar experiences. It is viewed as a dynamic, transactional process, with a special focus on the
quality of the relationship between participants.
The term dialogue derives from the Greek dialogos, in which logos refers to meaning and dia is a
prefix that translates as through or across. Implied in its Greek roots is the notion that meaning
emerges from interaction; it is not something that already exists, waiting to be discovered. Meaning
is co-constituted through communication, reflecting both the form of message exchange and the
relationship between individuals. Dialogue is made possible by the attitudes with which participants
approach each other, the ways they talk and act, and the context within which they meet.
Dialogue is often contrasted with monologue, a transmission-focused process that is primarily
concerned with control of the other and of the situation, and with discussion and debate, both of
which involve dissecting or breaking things apart, with an emphasis on the presentation and defense
of positions. Dialogue points beyond the everyday exchange of messages, implying a particular
quality of communication that makes possible learning and change, in both self and others.
Dialogue does not preclude disagreement; indeed it allows participants to explore complexities of
their own perspectives as well as those of others. Scholars advocate dialogue as a constructive way
for individuals to navigate their differences in interpersonal, organizational, community, and public
realms. This entry provides a brief overview of the primary thought leaders in dialogue theory
and traces the way in which dialogue theory was incorporated into and developed within the
communication discipline.

Thought Leaders in Dialogue Theory

There are many important contributors to dialogue theory, but the following are considered to be
those who most directly addressed dialogue in their writings: Martin Buber, Carl Rogers, HansGeorg Gadamer, Mikhail Bakhtin, David Bhm, and Paulo Freire.

The existentialist philosopher Martin Buber placed the concept of dialogue at the center of his
approach to human communication and human existence. His distinction between two types of
human relationships, I-It and I-Tohu, became a key focus of dialogue theory. In an I-It relationship,
the communicator views the other as an object and manipulates the other for the communicator's
own selfish ends. The communication in an I-It relationship is characterized by self-centeredness,
deception, pretense, appearance, domination, and even exploitation. Persuasion, prestige, and power
characterize the exchange. In an I-Thou relationship, on the other hand, the attitudes and behavior
of each communicator revolve around honesty, directness, spontaneity, and mutual responsibility.
Individuals in a dialogic relationship do not attempt to impose their own views on each other, and
each person accepts the other unconditionally, without attempts to change the other. Dialogic
partners show an awareness that others are unique and whole persons, exhibit a genuineness or
authenticity toward each other, and demonstrate a respect for each other that encourages mutual
growth and development.
Buber also introduced the concept of the between as a guiding communication metaphor. He
understood dialogue as rooted in the space that exists between persons in a relationship. It is this
common center of discourse that brings people together in conversation, not the individual psyche
of the interactants. His emphasis on the sphere of the between and the way in which meaning is coconstituted during dialogue takes the focus away from both individualism and collectivism and
places it on the relational. This gives recognition to the interdependence of self and other, the
intersubjectivity of meaning, and the emergent nature of reality.
Carl Rogers, considered by many to be the most influential American psychologist and
psychotherapist, was a central figure in advancing a dialogic view of communication. One of the
founders of the humanistic approach to psychology, he developed a client-centered approach to
therapy, which he later termed person-centered as the application of his work broadened to include
relationships in other contexts. He believed that listening was central to therapy and to all
relationships, and he popularized the term empathy as key to meaningful communication. Perhaps
more than any other leader of the humanistic psychological movement, Rogers shifted the focus of
communication to the self. He believed that communication and relationships must center on
concern for human feelings, human relationships, and human potential. He placed a great deal of
trust in the innate wisdom of human beings, believing that if one could get in touch with the deepest
sense of self, direction will emerge and constructive changes would occur without the need to be
instructed, shown, or directed by others. He encouraged stripping away facades and moving away
from oughts, expectations of others, and attempts to please others. Rogers believed that a space
could be opened for dialogue when relationships are characterized by a willingness to listen and to
enter into a meaningful relationship with the other, genuineness in sharing feelings and ideas with
the other, respect and regard for the other, and empathic understanding, which he viewed as
entering the private perceptual world of the other and becoming at home in it.
Hans-Georg Gadamer was a philosopher who studied and worked closely with Martin Heidegger;
Gadamer became interested in hermeneutics, or interpreting the meaning of written texts and
symbolic artifacts, from his association with Heidegger. Gadamer's goal was to uncover the nature
of human understanding. In his treatise Truth and Method, he argued that humans above all seek
understanding, and it is through language that this understanding is built. Both language and
understanding are living, dynamic processes, open to continual development and change. Meanings
that evolve between oneself and the other are open, fluid, and dependent on both the context of the
encounter and the prior understandings and prejudices of interpreters. He wrote about the positive

impact of prejudice, which he argued needs to be recognized as inherent in all communicators and
forms the basis for human understanding. Gadamer used the phrase fusion of horizons to
characterize the understanding that develops between persons. He believed that the process of
understanding is not based on empathy for another but involves the attainment of a higher
universality that overcomes the limited horizons of each participant. It is a move from the separate
positions of individuals to a synthesizing position that includes relevant aspects of each person's
views.
Mikhail Bakhtin was a Russian scholar of literature, culture, language, and philosophy who
produced the bulk of his writings in the 1920s through the 1940s but who was not discovered by
Western scholars until the 1970s and 1980s. Though he addressed a wide range of topics, the
concept of dialogue was central to his thinking. He believed that dialogue reflects both unity and
difference, and at the heart of dialogue is the simultaneous fusion and differentiation of
perspectives. For dialogue to occur, participants must build a common base of understanding and at
the same time maintain the uniqueness of their individual perspectives. Bakhtin views dialogue as
embodying a dialectical tension-ality that inherently gives it a fluid and dynamic nature. As
participants engage in dialogic interaction, there is a dynamic interplay of expression and
nonexpression, certainty and uncertainty, conventionality and uniqueness, integration and
separation. Dialogue, to Bakhtin, is an emergent process in which the interplay of contradictory
forces creates a constant state of unrest and instability, while also bringing moments of unity and
synthesis.
David Bhm, an American physicist and colleague of Albert Einstein, spent most of his career in
London. His early works dealt with topics such as quantum theory and the theory of relativity; later
in his career he brought his understanding of theoretical physics into the realm of dialogue. He
warned against the dangers of fragmentation, of breaking the interaction process into separate
elements that are treated as if they are independent of each other. Instead, he argued, dialogue must
be understood as a holistic process rather than as a collection of separate exchanges. This undivided
whole is in a constant state of flow and change, part of an unbroken movement. Bhm believed that
for dialogue to occur and be sustained, communicators must suspend judgment about both their own
and others' beliefs and opinions. This suspension implies allowing a variety of perspectives to exist
in tension, without premature attempts to resolve them.
The Brazilian educator Paulo Freire is best known for his influential book Pedagogy of the
Oppressed. In Freire's view, dialogue allows us to move away from individualism and the focus on
self to jointly build a learning community. He advocated a dialogic style of education in which the
student's own historical situation provides the starting point for learning. In his work with nontraditional students, he sought, through dialogue, to protect the dignity of learners, allowing them to
explore new ideas without fear of humiliation. According to Freire, it is important to affirm the
other, thereby helping to instill a sense of hope in the minds of an otherwise oppressed community.
For Freire, dialogue can transform the world by enabling us to explore the type of world we desire
and shape it together. Dialogue is built on humility to learn from the other, guided by trust between
communicators, and pushed forward by hope for liberation from oppression. He insists on the unity
of word and action: Unless dialogue leads to changes, it is just idle chatter. Although he also
believed that action without dialogue was also inappropriate, he saw dialogue as the way to
challenge the existing domination that was responsible for oppression.

Dialogue Theories in Communication

Communication scholars have been concerned with the concept of dialogue from the field's earliest
days, starting with study of the Socratic dialogues written by Plato. Until around 1970, however, the
focus of dialogue studies in communication was primarily on rhetorical inquiry. This began to
change when Floyd Matson and Ashley Montagu published their influential volume The Human
Dialogue, which appeared in 1967. The authors drew heavily from the work of Martin Buber,
adopting his contrast of dialogue with monologue. They described how dialogue promotes both
development of self and knowing the other in the context of strengthening the relationship between
individuals. They characterized dialogue as the unfinished third revolution in communication
theory, sketching out a vision of communication that would move from detachment to connection,
from objectivity and subjectivity to intersubjectivity, and from estranged aloofness to something
resembling an act of love. Although Matson and Montagu's works were not from the
communication discipline, their book helped turn attention toward new ways of conceptualizing the
speaker-listener relationship.
Communication scholar Richard Johannesen's 1971 article The Emerging Concept of
Communication as Dialogue provided an important impetus for the development of dialogic
studies in the communication discipline. Drawing heavily from Martin Buber and Carl Rogers, he
described what he called the major components essential for dialogic communication: (a)
genuinenessavoiding a faade, stratagem, or projection of an image; (b) accurate empathic
understandingreflecting feelings as seen from the other's viewpoint; (c) unconditional positive
regardconfirmation and nonpossessive warmth for the other, without necessarily approving the
behavior of the other; (d) presentnessavoiding distractions and being communicatively
accessible; (e) spirit of mutual equalityviewing each other as persons, not objects, avoiding
superiority and power; and (f) supportive psychological climatelistening without anticipating,
interfering, competing, refuting, or warping meanings. Johannesen raised a number of questions that
were given attention by subsequent scholars: Should monologue and dialogue be viewed as
mutually exclusive opposites? How does one study dialogue? Can it be subjected to empirical
research? Can people be taught to engage in dialogue? What ethical issues are inherent in the
concept of dialogue? What is the role of nonverbal communication in dialogue? In what
communication contexts can dialogue function most effectively?
As the study of interpersonal communication advanced in the 1970s, a number of dialogically
oriented textbooks were published. John Keltner's Interpersonal Speech Communication, Kim
Giffin and Bobby Patton's Fundamentals of Interpersonal Communication, Charles Brown and Paul
Keller's Monologue to Dialogue: An Exploration of Interpersonal Communication, and John
Stewart's classic reader Bridges Not Walls all reflected a shift away from the older rhetorical
traditions in communication to increased emphasis on the humanistic orientation of the 1960s. This
new focus on dialogue was not without its critics, and some even characterized the new dialogic
focus as an academic fad.
In Foundations of Dialogic Communication, written in 1978, John Stewart helped clarify
communication scholars' basic understanding of the dialogic phenomenon by articulating the
philosophical positions in which the study of dialogue is grounded. He showed how (a)
phenomenology's emphasis on the metaphysical and epistemological primacy of relationship
contributed a relational perspective to dialogic studies and an emphasis on the nature of the
transaction between human beings engaged in dialogue; (b) the phenomenological notion of
intuition grounds dialogic communication's experiential focus; (c) existentialism leads to a focus on
self and self-awareness, leading to the importance placed on developing awareness of one's own

idiosyncratic communication values and behavior through dialogue; and (d) philosophical
anthropology channels dialogic studies toward holism, in which emphasis is given to integrating
cognitive, affective, and behavioral elements of communication.
Stewart's grounding of dialogue studies in philosophical inquiry helped move the study of dialogue
beyond its early emphasis on humanistic psychology and encouraged the further development of
dialogue theory within the communication discipline. Additional textbooks with a dialogic focus
appeared, but there were also scholarly books and journal articles. A review in 1998 by Kenneth
Cissna and Rob Anderson listed more than 100 citations on the topic of dialogue, most of them
published during the 1990s. The number has continued to grow in the 21st century, and dialogue
has become a concept that carries across all communication studies. New books went beyond
interpersonal communication, as dialogue theory was embraced also by rhetorical studies,
organizational communication, media studies, and intercultural communication. At the same time,
dialogue studies in communication expanded to include a broader range of thinkers, including
feminist theorists such as Carol Gilligan. Her 1982 book, In a Different Voice, described moral
development from a female perspective, showing how women give more emphasis to connection,
relationship, inclusion, and caring, all of which are part of a dialogic perspective.
As works on dialogue grew rapidly, however, there was a tendency to define it so broadly that it
became a synonym for all human contact. In their 2000 article Dialogue as Tensional, Ethical
Practice, John Stewart and Karen Zediker advocated a more focused understanding of dialogue.
They differentiated between what they termed descriptive and prescriptive approaches to
dialogue. The former refers to an approach that views all human life as inherently dialogic, while
the latter approach reserves the term dialogue for a particular quality or type of relating. Those who
draw heavily from Bakhtin's work, such as Leslie Baxter and Brbara Montgomery in their 1996
book Relating: Dialogue and Dialectics, fall within the descriptive approach. They argue that
dimensions of personal relationships such as the self, competence, and relational development
should be reconceptualized dialogically. For descriptive theorists, the essential human condition is
relational, and dialogue is an omnipresent and significant feature of daily interaction.
Prescriptive approaches to dialogue, which also emphasize the relational nature of the human
condition, are equally concerned with urging their listeners to change their communication patterns
toward more dialogic modes of interaction. Dialogue, in this case, is a goal toward which
participants can work. Interactants can make communicative choices that will help create conditions
for dialogue to occur. Those who base their work on Buber's approach, such as Barnett Pearce and
Stephen Littlejohn in Moral Conflict: When Social Worlds Collide, are more prescriptive in their
orientation. These authors suggest specific communication practices that are designed to promote
higher quality public discourse on divisive issues.
Many communication scholars believe that prescriptive approaches to dialogue are particularly
needed in today's multicultural and conflicted world in which value differences and struggles over
scarce resources often lead to alienation, marginalization, community breakdowns, violent
confrontations, and other dysfunctional and destructive consequences. Although the characteristics
of communication and relationships advocated by prescriptive theorists and practitioners may be
difficult or in some cases impossible to realize, they can serve as an ideal toward which
communication can be directed. Dialogic practices apply to a wide variety of contexts, including
personal relationships, organizational environments, educational settings, health care systems, and
public discourse, as Ronald Arnett and Pat Arneson demonstrate in their book, Dialogic Civility in a

Cynical Age. Although the situated and emergent nature of dialogue makes it inappropriate to offer
a set of specific steps that will guarantee a dialogic experience from a particular encounter, the acts
of turning toward the other, focusing on the between, listening with respect to differences, and other
dialogic moves all increase the likelihood that communication will be enhanced and relationships
will become more creative, fruitful, and rewarding.
Benjamin J. Broome

Further Readings
Anderson, R. , ed. , Baxter, L. A. , ed. , & Cissna, K. N. (Eds.). (2004). Dialogue: Theorizing
difference in communication studies. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Anderson, R. , ed. , Cissna, K. N. , ed. , & Arnett, R. C. (Eds.). (1994). The reach of dialogue:
Confirmation, voice, and community. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.
Arnett, R. , ed. , & Arneson, P. (Eds.). (1999). Dialogic civility in a cynical age: Community, hope,
and interpersonal relationships (pp. 83102). Albany: State University of New York Press.
Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). The dialogic imagination: Four essays by M. M. Bakhtin (M. Holquist, Ed.;
C. Emerson & N. Holquist, Trans.). Austin: University of Texas Press.
Baxter, L. A. , & Montgomery, B. M. (1996). Relating: Dialogues and dialectics. New York:
Guilford Press.
Bhm, D. (1996). On dialogue (L. Nichol, Ed.). London: Routledge.
Buber, M. (1958). I and Thou (2nd ed.; R. G. Smith, Trans.). New York: Scribner. (Original work
published 1923)
Cissna, K. N. and Anderson, R. Theorizing about dialogic moments: The Buber-Rogers position
and postmodern themes.Communication Theory vol. 8 (1998). pp. 63104.
Gilligan, C. (1982). In a different voice: Psychological theory and women's development.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Matson, F. W. , ed. , & Montagu, A. (Eds.). (1967). The human dialogue: Perspectives on
communication. New York: Free Press.
Pearce, W. B. , & Littlejohn, S. W. (1997). Moral conflict: When social worlds collide. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.
Stewart, J. Foundations of dialogic communication.Quarterly Journal of Speech vol. 64 (1978). pp.
183201.

Stewart, J. and Zediker, K. Dialogue as tensional, ethical practice.Southern Communication

Journal vol. 65 (2000). pp. 224242.

Broome, Benjamin J. "Dialogue Theories." Encyclopedia of Communication Theory. Ed. .

Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 2009. 302-07. SAGE Reference Online. Web. 7 Aug. 2012.