Advancing Family Communication Scholarship: Toward a Communicology of the Family

Abstract

In this article I argue for advancing family communication scholarship by incorporating more methodologies like communicology, which reflect human science systems of inquiry. Foremost, communicology offers a paradigm exemplar of the methodological integration of semiotic and phenomenological theory. We find that communicology is one among a number of emerging postmodern perspectives, like narratology and performance theory, for example, which effectively combines both interpretive and critical research agendas. Approaches like communicology show promise for future research aimed at critically examining the world of the family in its inherent concreteness, emotionality, and subjectivity.