This groundbreaking book presents conceptual, theoretical, and applied chapters demonstrating the strengths of interpretive approaches in the study of interpersonal communication. It extends our understanding of interpersonal communication through the incorporation of interpretive and critical theory paradigms. Until now, no text has systematically described interpersonal communication and theory by drawing on insights from interpretive or critical theory approaches. The authors fill two contemporary needs: (1) they provide a collection of essays that raises theoretical and methodological issues in the study of interpersonal communication relevant to all researchers in this area of study, and (2) they present a general approach to interpersonal communication that has gained wide acceptance among practitioners and educators, but has been under-represented by advanced research texts.

Included here are interpretive and critical perspectives including phenomenology, feminism, hermeneutics, symbolic interactionism, semiotics, and postmodern ethnography. The book provides information that extends our understandings of interpersonal communication by demonstrating the ways in which interpretive perspectives can contribute to the development of theory and research on interpersonal communication.