Professor Howie Giles, Department of Communication, celebrates two recently published books.
Originally published in 1985, his book Recent Advances in Language, Communication, and Social Psychology, provides a detailed exploration of the dynamics of language within social psychology forms a social psychology of language which is distinct from other approaches. This volume presents some of the growing body of research in this area, with many theoretical models and ideas - chapters consider the relationship between language and social situations, looking at cognitive structures in how communication between individuals develops in childhood and beyond, how it defines social situations, influences others, expresses feelings and values, evokes social categorizations and how it can break down.
In
Oxford Encyclopedia of Intergroup Communication, Dr. Giles is an Editor-in-Chief
, and it is the first dedicated to this burgeoning field within communication studies. The essays in this collection explore geographic regions, communication processes, theories, and applied areas of interest, all pertaining to how human communication processes are influenced by, and themselves influence, the groups to which we all belong. In an authoritative volume, the project brings together research, theory, and application on both well-established and newly explored intergroup communication situations. The new perspectives not covered in earlier works include:
- how word order affects social status
- how metaphors shape intergroup relations
- how sexual orientation is communicated
- how interpersonal and intergroup communication intersect
- what neuroscience contributes to intergroup communication
- and how intergroup communication operates in previously unacknowledged settings such as the military or in the political arena.
Given that the "intergroup umbrella" essentially integrates and transcends many of the traditional conceptual boundaries in communication (such as media, health, intercultural, organizational and so forth), The Oxford Encyclopedia of Intergroup Communication provides an intriguing window into the communicative world of intergroup relations so integral to other social sciences. The encyclopedia will be an essential reference for anyone interested in intergroup communication issues, particularly research scholars and graduate students.
