How the Humanities Can Empower Communication

by Gavin F. Hurley

The humanities are traditionally concerned with history, literature, ethics, foreign languages, and cultural studies. Communications, on the other hand, examines verbal and written messaging—often as they relate to the professions. Since the discipline of communications does not primarily investigate human society and culture, it is often separated from the humanities. This trend has generally been adopted in higher education institutions throughout the nation. And North Dakota institutions are no exception. Communications programs at University of North Dakota, Minot State University, and Bismarck State College all spotlight professional skills and applications.

Despite departmental separation, the communication arts can come to depend on the humanities in foundational ways. When familiar with human society and culture, communicators can elevate the social dimensions of their communication. These social dimensions are crucial to clear speaking and writing. Ultimately, they help us communicate with one another rather than communicate past each other. Humanities can help empower us as nimbler and more versatile communicators in ways that can sometimes be overlooked.

WHAT IS COMMUNICATION?

Recent surveys have shown that—along with financial problems, infidelity, and lack of commitment—miscommunication remains a regular cause of divorce in the United States. (1) Presumably, clearer channels of communication can help couples avoid such strife. Employers consistently seek clear communication skills in their prospective candidates as well. A 2017 survey from the Graduate Management Admission Council (a nonprofit organization of 220 graduate business schools from around the globe), found that oral and written communication, listening skills, and presentation skills are four of the top five skills that employers seek in new hires. (2) Therefore, communication—

and specifically, effective communication— seems to be crucial when socially navigating the world, in both family life and professional life.

The sociality of communication can be revealed through the etymology of the word itself. The word “communication” evolved from the Latin word communis which means “shared.” The prefix “com” is found in various English words like “common,” “community,” and “communion.” What do all of these words share? The act of coming together and converging. Communication is a social activity, perhaps even a social duty. Ideally, people “converge together” through shared words, ideas, and meanings. To this end, communicators invite listeners or readers into messages wherein they exchange and establish common ground. Within such space, each party can more fully understand the other’s perspectives, rather than making hasty assumptions about them. Naturally, this kind of patient understanding can be important work within a civil society. And it can help us get things done as productive citizens.

So what is effective communication? After all, it may not be enough just to communicate; we want to communicate well. As previously mentioned, effective communication fosters mutual understanding through shared language and ideas. For example, if an email is written in Spanish, a reader needs to know Spanish. Spanish language becomes a shared value between parties. Furthermore, if a speaker discusses the technical minutia about aerospace engineering, a listener may need to have an introductory understanding about aerospace engineering. As such, the subject matter can become the baseline shared knowledge. And delivery can matter too. If a speaker talks too fast or a writer clutters an email with rambling run-on sentences, the listener or reader may not be able to clearly understand the message. Therefore, an appropriate delivery and style can affect the effectiveness of communication as well. In short, it becomes critical for speakers and writers to know about their audiences. In the previous examples, communicators should probably ask themselves: Does my audience know Spanish? Do they know about aerospace engineering? Are they comfortable with fast talking? The better we know our audiences then the better we can accommodate differences and use shared knowledge and values to establish common ground.

Communication depends upon people— and effective communication demands strategic cooperation with people. This cooperation is an everyday activity. And it depends on everyday communication choices. In fact, often we do it without thinking about it—whether we are purchasing vegetables at the local grocery store or chatting to an acquaintance at the bus stop. However, when we become deliberately aware of these communication choices, then we can become better at wielding them.

As a university professor of writing, I emphasize this point throughout my first-year writing courses. In the first couple weeks of the semester, I give my students a specific communication scenario and ask them to think about how they would compose an everyday piece of communication. In the exercise, students imagine that they are seeking a significant other, and they have just met a wonderful “special someone”—Alex—on campus. After conversing with Alex on a Wednesday, they agree to grab a bite to eat off-campus on Friday night, two days later. For the in-class exercise, the student must carefully compose a text message on Friday afternoon that confirms their plans for that evening. To compose a deliberate text message—that is, one that doesn’t offend or confuse Alex—they must become sensitive about the impression that they make through their communication choices. They must also account for the purpose of the communication—that is, to confirm the plans.

Students often find this exercise to be more difficult than they originally assume. It requires balance. Students must speculate how their words will impact Alex— presumably in a purposeful and positive manner—while also honoring their own personalities. Ultimately, this in-class activity pushes students to ponder the mechanisms of connective communication—factors that can inform everyday interactions, whether speaking with family members or texting newly met love interests. These decisions are fundamentally social: they can consider the audience as much as they consider the message itself.

THE ART OF RHETORIC

Everyday audience-forward communication—such as text messaging— can be defined as “rhetoric.” Rhetorical studies is a thousand-year-old discipline that is still relevant today. Although rhetoric can be difficult to define, it has come to mean the art of effective communication. However, “effective communication” can be understood in various ways. For example, twentieth-century American rhetorician Kenneth Burke broadly defines rhetoric as symbols used by “human agents” to construct attitudes and actions “in other human agents.” (3) Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle defines rhetoric as “a capacity to observe what admits being persuasive in each case” (1355b27-28). (4) And finally, Ancient Roman statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero explains rhetoric as a purposeful endeavor which seeks to instruct, persuade, and delight audiences (1.3). (5) Dozens of additional definitions of rhetoric have surfaced throughout the millennia—and virtually every definition considers audience.

Ultimately, the rhetorical arts provide the tools to strategically optimize our speech or writing when interacting with another person with particular purposes in mind. And, as already alluded to, it hinges upon purposeful audience awareness. For example, if we wanted to teach a person about the flight patterns of North Dakota magpies, it would make sense to, at the very least, figure out how much our audience already knows about birds and North Dakota. And we could go from there. If they don’t know much about general birds or North Dakota, then we would need to start from an earlier point in the discussion. The same approach applies to persuasion. If we are attempting to convince someone to vote for a particular political candidate—or at the very least get them to see them as a reasonable option— we should probably understand the general political convictions of our audience. And, if we want to entertain an audience, we should probably recognize the tastes of our audience: What do they enjoy? What do they not enjoy? Consequently, if we wanted to be rhetorically prepared for purposeful interactions, it would be advantageous to know all of this information about our audience before engaging with them.

MULTIPLE WAYS TO COMMUNICATE

An effective communicator is nimble. They can nimbly connect with a range of audiences. They are versatile because they know about diverse people—which can include cultural backgrounds, histories, ethical constitutions, political influences, religious doctrines, artistic sensibilities, and so on. As illustrated in previous examples, this knowledge can inform our communication. After all, the more we understand others’ particular beliefs and knowledge, the better we understand the reasoning that fuels their diverse perspectives—and as a result, the clearer we can connect with others.

Often, differences are easily negotiated within everyday communication situations; however, sometimes differences can quickly devolve into conflict—as seen when family members bicker on Facebook or friends quarrel on Twitter. Therefore, it can benefit our communication efforts to think audience-forward. For example, imagine if we had to effectively explain the existence of the internet to an 89-year-old, booklover who has never heard of the internet. Or imagine that we had to explain 9.8 m/s2 acceleration of gravity to our 4-year-old niece. What would we use as common ground? In both outlandish scenarios, we would naturally avoid overly technical language. We probably wouldn’t speak about the internet to the 89-year-old as if they are Steve Jobs—nor speak to the 4-year-old about physics as if they are Neil DeGrasse Tyson. We would use everyday comfortable language that is tailored to each of them. And in this way, they do not get frustrated with the unfamiliar material.

Now, when thinking rhetorically, we may want to be even more strategic when building common ground. Since the 89-year-old enjoys books, we can mention books and libraries as points of reference. Perhaps we could explain how the internet is like a digital library. Perhaps we can motivate their understanding by explaining how online booksellers help people shop and buy books from all over the world. When explaining physics to a 4-year-old, we may want to reference scenarios that she already understands—such as scenes from Disney films. Perhaps we can demonstrate gravity in action by dropping objects in front of her, rather than only using words to explain it.

In short, rhetorical communicators can strategically spotlight an audience’s own understanding to help them better understand (and want to understand) new knowledge and positions. To this end, the more that a communicator knows about the audience, the more that the communicator can purposefully—and civilly—connect with their audience. These everyday communication choices may seem obvious—but, once we really internalize these humanities-informed habits, we can really begin to empower ourselves as speakers and writers.

THE HUMANITIES CAN HELP

Disciplines in humanities optimize rhetorical communication by helping us better understand human conditions—and contexts—more fully. Learning about the humanities can ensure that we consider— and embrace—the social dimensions of writing and speaking. The more we know about our audience’s experiences, cultures, beliefs, and humanity, the more adaptive power we have to communicate to audiences—and with audiences. After all, philosopher Francis Bacon famously claimed that “knowledge is power.” The more we know about a subject, the more power we have to work with that subject. Accordingly, the more we know about audience, the more power we have to work with that audience.

The implications do not end there. As French Enlightenment thinker Voltaire (and later, Peter Parker’s uncle in the Spiderman comics) reminds us: “with great power comes great responsibility.” The art of rhetoric can also have a dark side: it can weaponize us to manipulate other people. We can exploit the knowledge of audiences to take advantage of audiences. And this offers another reason why the humanities are so important within strong communication. By exploring disciplines in the humanities, communicators can more fully appreciate the differences and commonalities between one another. Accordingly, they can better appreciate how being ethical communicators empowers effective communication.

Ultimately, if we are fluent in the humanities, we can more easily identify as a vir bonus dicendi peritus or “good person speaking well” (12.1.1): (6) the ideal rhetorical speaker as promoted by influential Roman rhetorician, Quintilian. A strong humanities background can help us understand that communication is not merely a means to an end. It is more complex than that. Instead, as “good” communicators, we should look to deeply and sincerely connect with the humanity of our audiences. Truly empowered communication resists coercion and instead celebrates interactive social dialogue between human beings—balancing individuality with ethical responsibility. Responsible social communication is not a one-way street. It takes a deep understanding of what it means to be a social creature. Disciplines like history, ethics, literature, cultural studies, and foreign language can afford us such foundational social understanding—and can help us grow as empowered communicators while helping society flourish.

While he lives in North Dakota for a third of the year, GAVIN F. HURLEY is an Assistant Professor of Composition at Ave Maria University in Ave Maria, Florida, where he teaches writing and journalism. Throughout the years, he continues to publish in various academic journals and essay collections on the rhetorical arts. In 2018, he published The Playbook of Persuasive Reasoning with Vernon Press. He will be publishing his next book, The Strategic Art of Time-Minded Communication, with Intellect Books for a 2022 release. You can find more information about Dr. Hurley—and more of his articles on communication—at gavinfhurley.com .

Works Cited

1 Shelby B. Scott, et al., “Reasons for Divorce and Recollections of Premarital Intervention: Implications for Improving Relationship Education,” Couple and Family Psychology 2, no. 2 (2013): 131-145, doi:10.1037/a0032025

2 Graduate Management Admission Council. “Corporate Recruiters Survey Report 2017,” 2017, https://www.gmac.com/-/media/files/gmac/research/employment-outlook/2017-gmac-corporaterecruiters-web-release.pdf

3 Kenneth Burke, A Rhetoric of Motives (1950; Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1984), 41.

4 Aristotle, Aristotle’s Art of Rhetoric, trans. Robert C. Bartlett (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2019), 11.

5 Marcus Tullius Cicero, "De Optimo Genere Oratorum," trans. H. M. Hubbell. Cicero: De Inventione, De Optimo Genere Oratorum, Topica (London: William Heinemann, 1969), 349-372.

6 Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, trans. H. E. Butler (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968).