Talkin' 'bout my Communication: Communication Awareness in Mid-Adolescence

Abstract

What do young people actually know about communication? What do they think communication involves? How do they perceive their own communication practices? To what extent can they articulate this understanding and awareness? At first glance, these are strikingly simple questions, but ones which instance a line of investigation that more prescient writers have suggested might be worth pursuing. According to Sypher and Applegate (1984), for example, we need to understand how young people think about communication if we are to understand the way they behave in communication. This is not to mention the transformative and educational potential inherent in their reflecting on their own communication practices, much as colleagues propose in the context of Language awareness. In this regard, I start the current paper by affirming, and elaborating, the natural position of language awareness in relation to this line of questioning. I then report selected findings from an empirical study in which I have started to tap the 'communication awareness' of 460 young Welsh and English people. In doing so, and with particular reference to noticeable sex differences, I also indicate some practical (i.e. pedagogical and applied) ways in which these findings may be both revealing and useful.