Tijdschrift voor Taalbeheersing - Volume 40, Issue 2, 2018

Research in Language and Communication in the years to come

This article pleads for strengthening two directions in research in the field of Language and Communication (Dutch: Taalbeheersing). First, compared to the past decades more efforts should be paid to finding solutions for societal problems in professional communication, based on theoretical insights and empirical studies. Second, the relation between the academic field and the content of the secondary school subject Dutch should be reinforced, with special attention to overcoming language deficiencies of vulnerable groups of learners.

Is problem-oriented research really able to enrich the school subject Dutch Language?

In this contribution, I argue that the two aims Carel Jansen proposes, are incompatible. A research agenda dominated by questions derived from practical problems will lead to a body of largely isolated insights and unrelated knowledge. Such an incoherent knowledge base is insufficient to provide an enrichment of the school subject Dutch language. A more theory guided research agenda eliciting and guiding empirical research that meets high standards of ecological validity could lead to such a knowledge base.

Against fundamental research!

Jansen (this issue) argues for choosing societally relevant themes to guide research into language use and communication. In this response article, it is proposed that all research should focus on solving societally relevant problems, in the domains of sustainability, democracy and health. Teaching students in secondary education communication and reasoning skills is seen as essential for implementing those solutions.

Theory-driven research on language and communication that is practically relevant

In the lead article, Carel Jansen argues that practical issues in professional communication should be taken as source for academic research on language and communication. I first accept the claim that it is important for the research field to take the professional field of communication into account (1). I then explain why practical solution based on academic research usually take so long to develop (2). My opinions partly also diverge from Jansen, at least in two ways. I argue that researchers in language and communication already incorporate practice into their studies (3). Finally I will discuss a number of problems that seem to occur in applied research (4).

Taalbeheersing (discourse studies) as DJ: your wish is our command. Or do we have more to offer?

Jansen, this issue, argues that researchers in the area of Taalbeheersing (discourse studies) should conduct more practically relevant research. He elaborates on the case of motivational interviewing, proposing that interaction analysts should set up research to explain the causes of the success of this popular professional technique. In response, we claim that Jansen fails to do justice to the current state of affairs. In the area of conversation analysis, there is a rich tradition and even a recent upswing of applied research, which has also contributed to the development of training methods and intervention studies. Centrally, these conversation analytic studies interact with professionals’ ideas and theories about their own communication. We provide two examples of recent research that shed light on professionals’ interaction, both adding to, expanding and correcting assumptions about the communication. In sum, we argue that discourse studies (CA specifically) have more to offer than providing answers to professionals’ questions. Our research constitutes a theoretically and empirically driven dialogue which leads to both answers and new questions.

Social interaction in language and communication studies

This paper argues that applied research should always co-exist with fundamental research. At the same time, the paper shows how social interaction research in the Netherlands has had a strongly applied focus for several decades, in particular in health care and education. In addition, the papers make a plea to stop characterizing communication studies in terms of the ‘verbal transmission of information’ since research deals not only with linguistic communication and not only with communicative activities where transmitting information is the main purpose.

Three (other) domains in research in Language and Communication

In this article I propose my view on the main research domains in language and communication. The first domain is concentrated on characteristics of communication products and the effects on a broad range of variables. Special attention is needed for the context of mandated disclosure, with guidelines for communication formulated by governments and managers. In this domain our research not only helps to improve communication practice, but also might criticize naïve presuppositions. The second domain is concentrated on processes of communication. The third domain is related to the context of training and education. Finally, the traditional Dutch label for research in language and communication (taalbeheersing) is criticized.

The communicative relevance of effect research: the necessity of statistics reform

In order for communication research to be relevant for societal, practical, purposes, researchers should be able to formulate the communicative relevance of their results. The results of quantitative communication effect research as they are currently communicated, do not meet this requirement. Effect researchers are currently ill-equipped for qualitative evaluations of the relevance of their obtained effects. This state of affairs calls for reform, if societal embedding of our research is to become a requirement.

Development of language skills: new and old challenges

In his contribution Carel Jansen argues for a new take on an old problem: the development of language skills of vulnerable groups of learners. Academic attention to this field will eventually help to enrich the content of the secondary school subject Dutch. In this contribution it is argued that this new project could benefit from research on the characteristics of the varieties of Dutch used by university students who allegedly suffer from language deficiencies.

Taalbeheersing: spreading the word

In the Dutch tradition, education and research on Dutch has been divided into three main areas: linguistics, literary studies, and taalbeheersing (roughly: applied linguistics, text linguistics). Of these three, the latter is arguably the least visible in public domain, in spite of the fact that it has an important message to tell. We can diagnose the problems underlying this fact. First, the fact that taalbeheersing is directly applicable and has been succesfully applied in many domains, gives its incentives to its practitioners to participate in the public debate. Second, the international success of the field makes the gap between the findings and a lay audience wider.

Humanities and communication science

In an earlier article, I concluded that there is no fundamental difference between communication and information science (CIS) and social science communication. Carel Jansen argued that there is a difference: CIS focusses on how – mainly linguistic – characteristics of a message influence message effectiveness. I propose to integrate humanities and social science communication. Social science has had a big positive impact on communication science over the last decades. Collaboration with humanity scholars can help answer questions that until now have remained unanswered: “what happens when you change a text (for instance: choosing different words, shortening sentences)? What happens when you make a sign more beautiful or creative?” The effect of creativity on effectiveness of non-commercial messages has not yet been studied. Another research subject that requires a humanities point of view is the phenomenon that we understand and comprehend what words and sentences mean, but interpret the meaning in completely different ways.

The translation of communication research results to third parties

Research in common ground shows that knowledge particles often are not explicitly worked out in conversations. This is also the case in so-called ego documents, like diaries. But such results normally are not taken up by historicians, nor are results of communication research. This is a plea to find new ways in activating historicians in the Netherlands to make use of communication research results. The example worked out here are diaries in the occupied Netherlands that reflect the extermination of the Jews. Research often assumes that the diaries mentioning the killing of the Jews, does not imply the writers “know” about the killings. “Not knowing” and common ground, however, should first be an object of systematic reflection.

Research in Language and Communication in the years to come: a response to the colleagues’ responses, and a new proposal

In this final contribution, the colleagues’ responses to the introduction (Jansen, 2018) are shortly discussed. Three themes are addressed: the name of our field, the ultimate goals of our research, and the relation with the school subject Dutch. The article ends with a plea for more collaboration in our field.