A Communicology of Culture: Handle With Care

Abstract

This article presents a human(istic) view of the (inter)cultural level of communication that overcomes such limitations of the traditional social scientific approach as essentializing and reifying culture that do insufficient justice to (inter)subjective agency. Communicology is taken as a methodology for the analysis of culture as embodiment in the public domain, demonstrating the nondiscursive, spiritual, and constitutive nature of its agency. The process of formation of (inter)cultural consciousness is discussed as moving from the experienced to the experiencing to the experiencer to the experience, as such. The biosemiotic character of this process is highlighted. From this perspective, effective communication is conceptualized in terms of efficacy, viewed as the ability to take interactions with the Other as one's own cure, thus accomplishing a balancing act of signification. Finally, the role of culture and communicology is emphasized as the common ground of inter(cultural) communication—ontological and epistemological, respectfully.