Social Organizations as Reconstitutable Networks of Conversation

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Penn collection
Departmental Papers (ASC)
Degree type
Discipline
Subject
Organization
Metaphors
Conversation
Agency
Reconstitution
Anthropological Linguistics and Sociolinguistics
Business Administration, Management, and Operations
Civic and Community Engagement
Communication
Communication Technology and New Media
Discourse and Text Linguistics
Epistemology
Interpersonal and Small Group Communication
Organizational Communication
Speech and Rhetorical Studies
Theory, Knowledge and Science
Funder
Grant number
License
Copyright date
Distributor
Related resources
Contributor
Abstract

This essay intends to recover human agency from holistic, abstract, even oppressive conceptions of social organization, common in the social sciences, social systems theory in particular. To do so, I am taking the use of language as simultaneously accompanying the performance of and constructing reality (my version of social constructivism). The essay starts with a definition of human agency in terms of its linguistic manifestation. It then sketches several leading conceptions of social organization, their metaphorical origin and entailments. Finally, it contextualizes the use of these metaphors in conversation, which leads to the main thesis of this essay that the reconstitutability of networks of conversation precedes all other criteria of the viability of organizational forms. The paper transcends the traditional second-order cybernetic preoccupation with individual cognition – observation and description – into the social domain of participation.

Advisor
Date Range for Data Collection (Start Date)
Date Range for Data Collection (End Date)
Digital Object Identifier
Series name and number
Publication date
2008-01-01
Journal title
Cybernetics and Human Knowing
Volume number
Issue number
Publisher
Publisher DOI
Journal Issue
Comments
Recommended citation
Collection