Abstract

This dissertation develops the idea that human communication is the experience of embodied social action. A holistic Methodology is proposed for studying verbal and nonverbal communication as it is experienced. The Methodology has a philosophical foundation of a version of Heidegger's existential ontology and hermeneutic epistemology. Ethnomethodology is proposed as a perspective for the understanding and interpretation of experiential phenomena as meaningful social action. A 'radical' version of participant-observation is proposed as a mode of inquiry. Finally, the representation of discoveries is provided by respecifying analytic modeling as instructions for experiential replication. Demonstration of the Methodology is provided in the discovery and respecification of an analytic model for maintaining communicative intersubjectivity. The model is called "comparative competency evaluation."