Treatment/training of speaking problems: A study in reification

Abstract

The methods of the hard sciences cannot be used exclusively for investigation of the concepts commonly used in communication research. In addition to numbers, social scientists use interpretation and imagination to achieve the ability to criticize, suggest, and advise, but are unable to achieve a sufficiently high degree of probability to predict and control components of the reifications they study. Communication apprehension, reticence, and shyness are illustrations of the kinds of reifications with which speech communication scholars work. Hard investigation is required to discover heuristics to guide improvement in the individual case as well as to acquire a supply of technical resources with which to effect behavior change.

Key concepts:

• Communication apprehension
• shyness
• reticence
• speech pedagogy
• therapeutic alliance
• medical model
• reification
• speech pathologies
• research models
• scientific method
• social science method
• competency
• rhetorical canons